Retro Ramblings

Oh my. What a terrible film. It’s painfully embarrasing through and through. This picture says it all: an obvious back projection as Emmannuelle tries to get him to move by being sexy. He doesn’t. A couple of seconds later we discover why. He’s gay! Hilarious.

The death nell of the Carry On series was most definitely rung with Carry On England. That film starred Kenneth Connor, Windsor Davies and Patrick Mower, and was their first attempt to mimic the Confessions of… series. They actually managed quite well, in that it had loads of boobs and wasn’t funny in the slightest. With this film they’ve reigned in the boob count, but still kept the laugh rate to an absolute minimum. I only managed to get to the end of the film (the first time I tried to watch this several years ago I couldn’t get past the opening scene on the concorde) so I could listen to the commentary by Robert Ross. Surely he would acknowledge how awful it was, and spend the ninety minutes analysing why. Sadly not.

The commentary track features Ross alongside two of the stars who are stil breathing: Jack Douglas and Larry Dann. They reminisce on the fun they had making the film, and whilst they occasionally address its shortcomings, they clearly think fondly of it. I suppose under those circumstances it would have been unfair of Ross to slag it off completely.

The plot of this film is fairly thin. For a sex comedy, featuring a sex mad French woman, it seems odd that the only nudity is provided by Kenneth Williams. How they ever thought that the site of his sagging fifty-two year old behind would arouse anything other than mild nausea is beyond me.

Although some of the Carry On regulars were still on board it feels quite unlike the other films in the series. As well as those mentioned we also have a rather large Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor and Peter Butterworth, as well as comic support from those British comedy stalwarts Beryl Reid, Victor Maddern (looking rather ill) and Henry McGee. The director was still Peter Rogers, responsible for helming all of the films in the series, even the late entry Carry On Columbus (which to this day I have still never seen). Judging from the comments on the commentary track there were also a lot of the same technicians and others behind the scenes. So how they managed to still come up with a film that really doesn’t work seems quite a feat.

A more recent dramatic television endevour that attempts to lift the lid of the Carry On world is Cor Blimey! Originally made for ITV, it depicts the tumultous relationship between Sid James and the much younger Barbara Windsor. He was in love with her and desperate to sleep with her, and she knew his reputation, said no, and married Ronnie Knight, a notorious London gangste. Despite this, on location for Carry On Girls she finally agrees to a night of sex, thinking that they will both get it out of their systems. It doesn’t work and he falls for her even more. They share a flat together for a while before she finally leaves him. They still have to work together, and there are some great behind the scenes moments captured here, such as when she loses her bikini top in Carry on Camping and she doesn’t want him to watch, or in Carry On Henry when they have to kiss, and he insists on reshooting the scene three times because he gets his lines wrong, much to her annoyance.

This is a first rate production. Samantha Spiro looks so much like Barbara Windsor that when, in the final scene Babs actually replaces Spiro during a long steadicam shot, I actually had to rewind and watch it again three times to check. It’s quite a daring move and artistically an odd choice, but it allows the audience to realise that the film has her seal of approval.

The film is packed with lots of other great moments and cast from the Carry On team, including plenty of Kenneth Williams complaining, particularly about his piles and the imminent appearance of his bottom in Carry On Emmannuelle. His penchent for wearing no underwear under his toga during the shooting of Carry On Cleo, so he could flash at passers by is also amusingly depicted (from behind, thankfully).

Just how truthful this film is we will never know. The fact that Barbara Windsor worked as an advisor on the film probably means it’s broadly accurate. It certainly adds layers of meaning to the films that Sid James and Barbara Windsor made together. You can now watch the films they made before AND after that naughty weekend in Brighton and try to see if there is any difference to their onscreen chemistry. “Cor Blimey” indeed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 11:16 pm and is filed under DVD Review, Film Reviews, Carry On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.