High-energy hijinks are the stock in trade of the comic
actors who carry on like crazy in a dozen madcap movie classics. Beginning in
1958 with Carry On Sergeant, the series (28 films in all) caused giggles
galore, first in Britain and then worldwide. By 1978, when the last of the lot
was wrapped, the tone was noticeably naughtier. See for yourself why this
national institution endures and continues to provoke howls of hilarity.
There's an extra dollop of daffiness in a DVD bonus that features the crème de
la Carry On covering two decades. 19-1/2 hours on 7 DVDs. Simon says: A
synopsis of just one film from this series is quite telling. Carry On Spying
is a spoof on Bond films and features agents James Bind and Ms. Honeybutt
battling the Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans (or
STENCH). As the marketing from the studio says so cleverly, "The Carry On team
pursue STENCH to the bitter end!’’ Simon Says: A synopsis of just one film
from this series is quite telling. Carry On Spying is a spoof on Bond films
and features agents James Bind and Ms. Honeybutt battling the Society for the
Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans (or STENCH). As the marketing from
the studio says so cleverly, "The Carry On team pursue STENCH to the bitter
end! There's a lovely irony about the way in which the Carry On
films are now revered, not only in the evolutionary story of British comedy,
but also as an essential ingredient of cultural history. Derided for years for
their low humor and conveyor-belt production values--30 films were churned out
in just 21 years between 1958 and 1978--they now embody a cozy, innocent, and
less sophisticated time. At the heart of their success are two vital
ingredients: a virtual repertory company of Britain's finest post-war comic
talents and quick-fire, innuendo-laden scripts which somehow become high-
octane fuel for side-splitting laughter. Public institutions, great historical
figures, and established entertainment genres provided the main modus
operandi, offering limitless potential for the films' staple themes of lust,
adultery, and chicanery. Carry On Sergeant kicked off in 1958 with mainstay
Charles Hawtrey. Later the same year in Carry On Nurse and in 1959's Carry On
Teacher, the basic team quickly gelled with Joan Sims and Kenneth Williams
making regular appearances. Leslie Phillips's insatiable predatory comic
persona also figured large in these early films. Perhaps the first major
milestone, though, came with the arrival of Sid James in 1960's Carry On
Constable. With his trademark raucous laugh and a face like a wizened walnut,
James would be a major factor in the ongoing success of the films, in which
his leering, lascivious, and amoral character would vary only in name. In
1962, Carry On Cruising marked the team's first foray into color. The
following year, the films grew more adventurous and multilayered. Within their
admittedly limited parameters, they did explore relationships and were
surprisingly radical in their satirizing of women's roles. Hattie Jacques, for
example, is best remembered for her fearsome matrons, but in Carry On Cabby
(1963) she plays a downtrodden woman who hits back at husband Sid by forming
her own taxi company. Carry On Jack (also 1963) found the team taking to the
high seas in a Mutiny on the Bounty-style spoof starring Bernard Cribbins, but
the next two films found the team at the real peak of its powers. Carry On
Spying (1964) introduced Barbara Windsor's giggly buxom blond, a character who
naturally fell hand in hand with James's aging Lothario in many of the
subsequent films. In Carry On Cleo the same year, Amanda Barrie's deliciously
frothy Egyptian queen and Kenneth Williams's saturnine Caesar set new heights
for the series. The year 1965 brought Carry On Cowboy, featuring Joan Sims as
a feisty saloon girl, while Carry On Screaming (1966) drove a comic stake
through the heart of classic Hammer horror flicks. Today, the Carry On films
are seen as a vital component in the linear development of modern British
comedy, influencing everything from French & Saunders to the surreal League of
Gentlemen. In their time, they provided a much-needed big-screen vehicle for
the greatest comic talents of the age. And today that vehicle has become a
legacy of wonderful performances, many of them truly subtle. On that level
alone, the Carry On films earn their status as a comic institution a hundred
times over. --Piers Ford