Actors & Directors
- Bernard Cribbins
- Gerald Thomas
- Charles Hawtrey
- Donald Houston
- Kenneth Williams
- Juliet Mills
Release date: 1997-08-18 Run time: 87 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.29
Review Carry On Jack [1963] / Warner Home Video:Carry On Jack was the 1963 offering from a team which had, by then, become a repertory company with special guests dropping in for a dose of innuendo. "What's all this jigging in the rigging?" demands Kenneth Williams, this time playing a ship's captain, and the scene is set for 90 minutes of ribaldry involving cross-dressing, press-ganging and plank walking. The plot scarcely matters. It's set after the Battle of Trafalgar and the sea is awash with Spanish galleons and pirates as the British navy sets about defending its shores with as much incompetence as possible. Sally, a barmaid at the Dirty Duck (Juliet Mills in feisty principal boy mode), knocks Bernard Cribbins on the head and steals his uniform so that she can go in search of her childhood sweetheart. He is promptly press-ganged and they end up on the same ship. Williams, on the brink of his ascendancy as a star turn, just about keeps the mannerisms under control enough to build the character of the naïve and neurotic captain. Familiar Carry On faces on top form include Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale, while Peter Gilmore-in his pre-Onedin Line days-appears as a pirate. Peter Rodgers' script is not quite vintage Carry On but the jokes keep coming and it's all good, clean fun. On the DVD: This was one of the first Carry On films to be made in colour. [+]
The print is in reasonable condition. The picture quality, apart from a couple of scratchy scenes of sailing ships that were probably drafted in from stock footage, is fair, as is the sound. But apart from the scene index there are no extras on the disc. Given the cult status of the Carry On films, and the wealth of documentary material which has been made about them and their stars, you'd think something extra could have been offered with the DVD releases to make them a more worthwhile alternative to the video. -Piers Ford.
Actors & Directors
- Kenneth Connor
- Hattie Jacques
- Barbara Windsor
- Peter Butterworth
- Joan Sims
- Ronnie Baxter
Release date: 1996-11-04 Run time: 49 min. RRP: £4.99 Price: £19.99
Review Carry On Christmas Capers [1972] / Cinema Club:
Actors & Directors
- Kenneth Williams
- Gerald Thomas
- Jack Douglas
- Peter Butterworth
- Joan Sims
- Kenneth Connor
Release date: 1995-10-09 Run time: 84 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.99
Review Carry On Emmannuelle [1978] / Cinema Club:Made in 1978, Carry On Emmannuelle was really the last gasp of the most fondly regarded series of British comedy films. In most respects, it hardly does justice to the many truly funny and brilliantly played previous scripts. But it does feature a curiously vulnerable, even touching, performance from Kenneth Williams as a French diplomat with a wife of insatiable physical appetites. In theory, of course, it aims to be a pastiche of the hugely popular Emmanuelle, which had marked the transition of soft-core erotic cinema into the art house. But it's too crudely scripted and lacking in the belly laugh inducing innuendo of the best Carry On films to succeed on that level. "Are you hungry, Loins?" Emmannuelle asks the chauffeur. "I think I could manage a little nibble," he replies. You get the idea. In the title role, Suzanne Danielle, who would go on to be the best of the Princess Diana impersonators, isn't a good enough comic actress to raise such lines above the ordinary. And the few stalwarts who returned for this outing-Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor and Peter Butterworth-just about emerge with their dignity intact. [+]
This was a Carry On too far. But fans will want it for their collection because it shows Kenneth Williams at his most professionally committed-his diaries reveal his real thoughts on the matter-and to remind themselves of the high quality of so much of the work which had gone before. On the DVD: presented in 4:3 format and with a standard mono soundtrack, this release of Carry On Emmannuelle starts off with a print of such ropey quality that you seem to be watching through a dust storm. The sound quality is little better, although on both counts things improve as the film progresses. The lack of extras is disappointing, adding to the rather sad, low-budget feel of the film itself. -Piers Ford.
Actors & Directors
- Frankie Howerd
- Charles Hawtrey
- Joan Sims
- Sid James
- Terry Scott
- Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1995-04-03 Run time: 87 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.99
Review Carry On Up The Jungle [1970] / Cinema Club:Carry On Up the Jungle has worn less well than some of the others in the series, simply because the African exploration genre it parodies-with its cannibals, great white hunters and lost Amazon tribes-is so entirely out of fashion. Still, Frankie Howerd made so comparatively few films that one which has him as an ornithologist searching for rare birds in the company of Joan Sims and Sid James is not going to be entirely without interest; he has few great moments here, but runs through his usual repertoire of groans and horse-faced sorrowful expressions with brio. The idea of Terry Scott playing Tarzan is in itself such a good joke that it hardly matters that most of what follows is him swinging, on ropes, into obstacles. On the DVD: The DVD has no special features whatever. It is presented in 1. 77:1 ratio with mono sound. -Roz Kaveney.
Actors & Directors
- Gerald Thomas
- Joan Sims
- Kenneth Williams
- Sid James
- Hattie Jacques
- Barbara Windsor
Release date: 1993-04-05 Run time: 175 min. Price: £9.99
Review Carry On Screaming / Carry On Teacher [1966] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Joan Sims
- Gerald Thomas
- Charles Hawtrey
- Kenneth Williams
- Sid James
- Jim Dale
Release date: 1997-08-18 Run time: 90 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.99
Review Carry On Cowboy [1966] / Warner Home Video:Made in the "classic" period of the series, 1966's Carry On Cowboy is a spoof Western set in Stodge City, about to suffer the arrival of black-hatted outlaw The Rumpo Kid, played by the less-than-youthful Sid James. Kenneth Williams is the aptly named Judge Burke, who appeals to Washington for help to combat this gunslinger and his henchmen. Assistance arrives in the form of Jim Dale's Marshall P Knutt, a drainage, sanitation and garbage expert from England, with a reference from Lady Pushing for doing a "good job on her main sludge channel", whose Christian name provokes a predictable misunderstanding. Fortunately, he's accompanied by Annie Oakley. As ever, much fun is to be had cheering/groaning along to double-entendres about "big ones", but never mind the script, feel the characters. Joan Sims does a good Mae West impression; Syd James "Ha hwa-ha-ha!"s his way through his part with his usual aplomb; the underrated Peter Butterworth is excellent as an inept Doctor; while Bernard Bresslaw adds to his impressively multi-ethnic CV, playing a Native American, with Charles Hawtrey as his incorrigible firewater-loving Chief. On the DVD: No extras, sadly, other than scene selection but Alan Hume's splendidly authentic colour lensing is suitably refurbished here. -David Stubbs.
Actors & Directors
- Gerald Thomas
- Alexei Sayle
- Peter Richardson
- Jim Dale
- Maureen Lipman
- Bernard Cribbins
Release date: 2000-06-26 Run time: 87 min. Price: £5.99
Review Carry On Columbus [1992] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Terence Longdon
- Hattie Jacques
- Charles Hawtrey
- Gerald Thomas
- Shirley Eaton
- Kenneth Connor
Release date: 1997-08-18 Run time: 84 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £4.88
Review Carry On Nurse [1958] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Alan Tarrant
- Joan Sims
- Jack Douglas
- Sid James
- Hattie Jacques
- Barbara Windsor
Release date: 1996-07-15 Run time: 72 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £5.00
Review Carry On - Orgy And Bess [1975] / 4 Front Video:
Actors & Directors
- Gerald Thomas
- Charles Hawtrey
- Bernard Bresslaw
- Joan Sims
- Kenneth Williams
- Sid James
Release date: 1995-09-11 Run time: 85 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.67
Review Carry On Abroad [1972] / Cinema Club:One of the last decent Carry On movies, Carry On Abroad is a 1972 venture into the world of package holidays. After this, the series descended into unfunny coarseness as opposed to camply laboured double entendre, culminating in the dreadful Carry On Emanuelle. Here, publican Sid James and dutiful mother's son turned sex maniac Charles Hawtrey are among a brace of Brits heading for the "paradise island" of Elsbels. Kenneth Williams is the out-of-his-depth tour operator, reverting to the sort of effete types he played in the 1950s, Peter Butterworth a pre-Manuel-style manager of a half-built hotel. A series of disasters ensue, with the entire gang landing up in jail following a fracas in a brothel at one point, but everyone finds romantic and sexual fulfilment in a quaint disco finale. This includes a gay character who is "dissuaded" from his homosexuality in a typical example of the thoroughly reactionary subtext that constitutes the really naughty bit of most Carry On films. Nonetheless, this throwback to an imaginary time when the lewdest innuendo of a dirty old man was greeted by young females with a flirty "Ooh, saucy!" is enjoyable on condition that you enter into its seaside-postcard spirit. June Whitfield is fine as a sexually uptight wife, Kenneth Connor a model of red-faced frustration as her wimpish husband. On the DVD: Sadly, no extra features except scene selection. The picture is a 4:3 ratio full-screen presentation. [+]
-David Stubbs.
Actors & Directors
- Hattie Jacques
- Gerald Thomas
- Sid James
- Barbara Windsor
- Kenneth Williams
- Bernard Bresslaw
Release date: 1996-01-15 Run time: 86 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.99
Review Carry On Dick [1974] / Cinema Club:The 18th century, with its frills and bawds, was ideal territory for the Carry On movies: Carry On Dick is one of the few of the series where one notices the quality of the art direction in intervals between terrible old Talbot Rothwell jokes and the creaking of standard farce moments. Captain Fancy (Kenneth Williams) is sent to the remote village of Upper Denture to arrest Big Dick Turpin (Sid James) and makes the mistake of confiding in the local Rector, the Reverend Flasher (who is Big Dick's secret alter-ego). Dick has troubles of his own: his liaison with his housemaid and henchperson Harriet (Barbara Windsor) is perpetually interrupted by his amorous housekeeper Hattie Jacques). Meanwhile, Joan Sims struts around the plot as the proprietor of a touring show of scantily clad young women. This is not one of the best of the series-a certain mean-spiritedness creeps in to the humour as does the self-conscious awareness that 1974 was a date a little late for some of the more sexist jokes-but any film with Kenneth Williams discussing satin coats with his tailor has something going for it. On the DVD: Sadly, the DVD has no frills: it is presented in mono and 4:3 screen ratio. -Roz Kaveney.
Actors & Directors
- Kenneth Connor
- Kenneth Williams
- Joan Sims
- Sid James
- Charles Hawtrey
- Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1993-04-05 Run time: 169 min. RRP: £9.99 Price: £14.99
Review Carry On Cleo / Carry On Sergeant [1964] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Jack Douglas
- Joan Sims
- Bernard Bresslaw
- Kenneth Williams
- Gerald Thomas
- Elke Sommer
Release date: 1996-01-15 Run time: 87 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.93
Review Carry On Behind [1975] / Cinema Club:The discovery of valuable archaeological remains beneath a holiday caravan site is the cause of the mayhem in Carry On Behind. That said, the sub-"plots", which involve Windsor Davies and Jack Douglas as a pair of randy fishermen, a couple sharing their caravan with an outsize dog (no, it's not like that. ), the obligatory giggling dolly birds and so on are all typical grist to the Carry On mill. The location is of course as bleakly miserable as such a place could ever be and will bring a frisson of familiarity to many Brits. Widely held to be one of the best in the series, the film would in fact have been a rather lacklustre effort were it not for the superbly over-the-top presence of Elke Sommer, whose performance as the strapping assistant to archaeologist Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams) seems like a wonderful hybrid of Ute Lemper and Charlie Dimmock. -Roger Thomas.
Actors & Directors
- Joan Sims
- Kenneth Connor
- Gerald Thomas
- Sid James
- Charles Hawtrey
- Kenneth Williams
Release date: 1997-08-18 Run time: 88 min. RRP: £6.99 Price: £1.14
Review Carry On Cleo [1964] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Charles Hawtrey
- Harry H. Corbett
- Kenneth Williams
- Joan Sims
- Fenella Fielding
- Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1997-08-18 Run time: 92 min. RRP: £6.99 Price: £1.74
Review Carry On Screaming [1966] / Warner Home Video:
Actors & Directors
- Hattie Jacques
- Sid James
- Joan Sims
- Charles Hawtrey
- Kenneth Williams
- Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1995-04-03 Run time: 85 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.18
Review Carry On Matron [1972] / Cinema Club:Hattie Jacques finally got to the play the title role in 1972 when Carry On Matron immortalised the character she had developed during several previous outings, most notably in Carry On Doctor. And she seized it with gusto. This is no one-dimensional performance, but a very human portrait of a woman doing her best to retain her authority in the face of mounting chaos-a raid planned by Sid James to steal the hospital's supply of contraceptive pills. Certainly, she's obsessed with regular bowel movements-this wouldn't be a Carry On film otherwise-but she remains a majestic figure of dignity with a touch of human warmth. Occasionally, too, a real hint of irony peeks through the slapstick and the innuendo. Surely scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell had his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek when he gave Barbara Windsor-then married to Ronnie Knight-the line, "I don't fancy being a gangster's moll!" Terry Scott makes a guest appearance and Sid James is at his most conniving and lecherous. Theatre impresario Bill Kenwright has a cameo role and there's an early appearance from Wendy Richard as a prototype Pauline Fowler. But it's the female stalwarts who shine. Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques were truly comic actresses of the highest order. -Piers Ford.
Actors & Directors
- Jim Dale
- Kenneth Williams
- Charles Hawtrey
- Gerald Thomas
- Joan Sims
- Phil Silvers
Release date: 1996-01-15 Run time: 94 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £1.18
Review Carry On Follow That Camel [1967] / Cinema Club:In Carry On Follow That Camel, Sergeant Bilko himself, Phil Silvers, lends lustre and trademark spectacles to this 1967 desert spectacle following the adventures of a group of foreign legionnaires who find themselves besieged by a bloodthirsty band of Bedouins. Silvers plays Sergeant Nocker, a rogue cast firmly in the Bilko mould, who takes a dislike to new recruit Jim Dale, a young upper class gent forced to join the legion following disgrace at a cricket match. He's accompanied, naturally, by his faithful manservant (Peter Butterworth), with the pair showing a fine disregard for the austere requirements of the Foreign Legion. However, once they reach an agreement with Sergeant Nocker, they can join forces to repel the Bedouins, led, not unpredictably, by Bernard Bresslaw. This is vintage Carry On, in spite of Sid James' absence. Kenneth Williams' performance is subdued by having to deliver the usual puns ("zere are a couple of points I still need to go over", he informs busty Joan Sims) in a mangled French accent but Silvers gets into the right mode of delivering broad comedy with subtle inflections. Peter Butterworth draws the short straw this time and must feature in the obligatory cross-dressing scene, while Charles Hawtrey is a splendidly unconvincing hardened legionnaire. As for Bresslaw, can any other British actor, with the exception of Sir Alec Guinness, have distinguished himself in such a variety of multi-ethnic roles? On the DVD: Sadly, there are no extra features except scene selection. The picture ratio is 4:3. -David Stubbs.
Actors & Directors
- Charles Hawtrey
- Joan Sims
- Sid James
- Terry Scott
- Kenneth Williams
- Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1991-07-22 Run time: 87 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £2.33
Review Carry On Henry [1971] / Cinema Club VC 1065:Shot in the bright postal colours of a seaside postcard, Carry on Henry applies the usual Carry On sniggering to the married life of Henry VIII. Talbot Rothwell's script is standard bedroom farce and full of jokes about choppers, while the threat of beheading and the actuality of torture are constantly present but only as the terrible things that happen to cartoon characters who will be back next time. Sid James turns in one of his better performances as the endlessly lecherous and fickle Henry, married to Joan Sims and lusting after Barbara Windsor. There is a genuine sexual chemistry between James and Windsor which at times almost breaks open the farce formula. The usual regulars-Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell, Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey, Charles Hawtrey as Sir Roger-do their usual turns; Williams is more subdued than usual, while Hawtrey hugely enjoys playing the Queen's secret lover. This was not one of the high points of the series, but it has its own curious charm. On the DVD: The DVD has no extras whatever, but is a good clean print in 1. 77:1 ratio with crisp mono sound. -Roz Kaveney.
Actors & Directors
- Patrick Mower
- Kenneth Connor
- Windsor Davies
- Gerald Thomas
- Jack Douglas
- Judy Geeson
Release date: 1999-09-20 Run time: 84 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £15.01
Review Carry on England [1976] / Cinema Club:By way of an experiment, a mixed-sex anti-aircraft battery is set up during World War II. The result is Carry On England, and the sex is indeed pretty mixed, although the drafting in of Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson rather demonstrates the need for at least some of the cast to be attractive in order to make this premise feasible. For the most part, of course, it's tits-out sex-comedy slapstick all the way, but there's a nicely ambivalent performance from Kenneth Connor, who portrays the wartime British officer class as being pretty much bonkers, a telling interpretation which Stephen Fry was to perfect years later in Blackadder Goes Forth. The location is of course typically Carry On cheap-and-cheerful, but its inevitable drabness, together with the indistinguishable khaki uniforms, tends to put a bit of a damper on the adult-panto atmosphere which the best Carry Ons deliver. The cast commendably manage to transcend this, though, so there's still plenty of fun to be had. On the DVD: The feature is presented in 1. 77:1 aspect ratio, but the disc has no added features. -Roger Thomas.
Actors & Directors
- Charles Hawtrey
- Sid James
- Jim Dale
- Joan Sims
- Gerald Thomas
- Kenneth Williams
Release date: 1996-01-12 Run time: 85 min. RRP: £5.99 Price: £9.98
Review Carry On Again Doctor [1969] / Cinema Club:The title of 1969's Carry On Again Doctor says it all; almost the same cast playing similar characters to their previous year's outing in Carry On Doctor. This one rejoices in the alternative title "Bowels are Ringing". But the enduring popularity of these films owes almost everything to their basic formula and if it occasionally seems a bit cobbled together, all the old favourites are still here. This time, the setting moves from the National Health Service to the private sector and even stretches as far as the "Beatific Islands" when Jim Dale is exiled to a missionary clinic for his overzealous attention to the female patients-who include Barbara Windsor of course. There, orderly Sid James rules the roost of the clinic with his harem of local women. Trivia addicts can spot Mrs Michael Caine in a brief role as a token dusky maiden. The second half of the Talbot Rothwell script picks up nicely as the characters converge on the private hospital back in England where Dale rakes in the money with a bogus weight loss treatment. Hattie Jacques is in fine form as Matron, Kenneth Williams fascinates with his usual mass of mannerisms and Joan Sims is stately as the Lady Bountiful figure financing most of the shenanigans. It's a tribute to their professionalism that we can still lose ourselves in some of the creakiest old jokes around. -Piers Ford.
| Models & Brands: Carry On Jack [1963], Carry On Christmas Capers [1972], Carry On Emmannuelle [1978], Carry On Up The Jungle [1970], Carry On Screaming / Carry On Teacher [1966], Carry On Cowboy [1966], Carry On Columbus [1992], Carry On Nurse [1958], Carry On - Orgy And Bess [1975], Carry On Abroad [1972], Carry On Dick [1974], Carry On Cleo / Carry On Sergeant [1964], Carry On Behind [1975], Carry On Cleo [1964], Carry On Screaming [1966], Carry On Matron [1972], Carry On Follow That Camel [1967], Carry On Henry [1971], Carry on England [1976], Carry On Again Doctor [1969]Top headlines: Mars lander breaks new ground: NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander delivered a second sample of Martian dirt to its onboard wet chemistry laboratory, NASA officials said Monday. ›16:52 Diamonds rained down during Ice Age: Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. ›22:38, 7.07 Ethnic Minorities Key to Burma's Future: As the vast majority of Burmese citizens clamor for change, ethnic minorities could be keys to the countrys future. 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