Search / Destroy : Carry On Films.

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Carry on up the Khyber : Best carry on?

Dark humour (massacres played for laughs (but not too many...))
Subversive lines? ("That'll teach them to ban Turbans on the bus!")
And the usual subtle stuff ("She's off to the hairdresser" "I hope she's not having it off")

Destroy:
Carry on England: Worst..
A budget of £20 gets you a disused army barracks for 3 days and a wooden artillery gun. And no funnies.

Now these are being issued as a "Collect them all" series.

Which ones to keep and which are really bad?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Carry on Cleo is the best. Big budgets, big laughs, all the Carry On regulars, and the "they've all got it in for me" line.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

personal favourites = Khyber (for the above mentioned and funniest scene ever = dinner party), at your convenience (Hawtrey at him most fabulously camp), cabbie (for pure Jacques vs James action)

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Search:
Carry on Cleo. Amanda Barrie is very Hello Nurse.
Carry on Doctor- having seen it over 150 times, I can't help but say this.
Carry on Camping - Babs Windsor's bikini top pinging still makes me titter.
Bernard Bresslaw thinking he's sexy (carry on camping)
Bernard Bresslaw in a dress.

Destroy:
Anything after 1969.

weird crazy Carry-on trivia

― Dave B (daveb), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually like the bit of pathos at the end of the day out in "at your convenience". The politics is a little suspect, though "All the unions want is to shag the boss's daughter" isn't really a message that either the bosses or the unions can really get behind.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I am in a union, and my fellow members and I are always trying to shag the boss's daughter.

When I was small I really liked all the WAR action in Carry On Up The Khyber.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Carry On at Your Convenience is set in a toilet factory and has Shirley Stelfox in it. What more could you ask for?

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Underrated perhaps:

Carry on Dick : esp at the end when Bernard Bresslaw's unheard but fully visible effing and blinding is drowned out by the church bells - quite risque for 1969 or whatever.

Carry On Don't Lose Your Head: almost elegiac in pace compared to the usuals.

― darren (darren), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, I like don't lose your head a lot, especially the fight at the end which right now am remembering iin slow motion for some reason.

ok, now I have urges to watch them all.

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Except for:

Now for some baddies:

Carry on Matron (1972) - the one where they rob birth control pills. Not all bad, but comedy premise (plot) does not work

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

and:

Carry on Behind: Roman fort under a campsite. Windsor Davies mugging. Elke Sommer (the best thing in it, oddly enough)

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I can never remember the title of that one, because it is set in a campsite but is not Carry On Camping.

Windsor Davies is very annoying, as is that mate of his. They should not be allowed appear in films.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Which mate? Don Estelle? I don't think he did, apart from It aint...

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

(guess who)
from IMDB
There's a Hole in Your Dustbin Delilah (1968) (TV) (uncredited) .... Short Football Hooligan

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Search:
Doctor
Again Doctor
Regardless
At Your Convenience
Don't Lose Your Head
Up The Jungle (mainly for Jackie Piper trying to teach Terry Scott English, and Valerie Leon in a leopardskin bikini - see also Girls)

Destroy:
Everything after At Your Convenience (although Girls is partially excused) - in fact, all the non-Talbot Rothwell ones.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

When was screaming? I didn't like it much when I first saw it but I reckon I'd love it now (if only for the "frying tonight" line)

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

.... and Fenella Fielding saying "do you mind if I smoke?"

Up the Khyber is my favourite.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Rescue:

Carry on Dick (the last good one)

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread would have been good last week as the last round of our pub quiz on Sunday was to name as many of the Carry On films as possible for a point each. We won the quiz anyway, but I had forgotten about so many of them...

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Carry On Waiting (for Godot)
Carry On Flossing
Carry On Eaters

― jazz odysseus, Tuesday, 24 February 2004 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Carry On London - Starring Daniella Westbrook, with Cameos from Posh and Becks...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 09:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I've only seen AT YR CONVENIENCE and CAMPING. Looking forward to "Matron," whose shoddy plot must be an improvement over the other films, which as far as I can tell have no plots at all.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:00 (twenty-two years ago)

That's a lovely pair (of films).

Carry On was crap porn by the end; any excuse to get babs a -giggling and various gay men to pull lascivious faces. The earlier ones were classic analyses of time-honoured British institutions, like Lindsey Anderson with tit gags.

< / cultural studies student>

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

The only one I haven't seen is "Carry on Emannuelle"

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

feel glad

― chris (chris), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Who's she?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:36 (twenty-two years ago)

they were playing these films weekly on the ABC up til recently. Up The Khyber was definitely my favourite.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:37 (twenty-two years ago)

sid james is a personal hero of mine

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:37 (twenty-two years ago)

ack ack ack ack

http://www.stupidlyhappy.com/archives/sid%20james.jpg

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:38 (twenty-two years ago)

What's not to like?

Wasn't he an ogre in real life? Like most of the Carry on gang?

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

i read that he was a complete gentleman but it may have been a biased account

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

My friend used to live in Sid James' old house on Gunnersbury Avenue in Ealing. About a year after his family moved there, cue the arrival of the British comedy firmament to blue-plaque the place.

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 11:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Cliff Goodwin's biography of Sid James is supposed to be pretty accurate. Serial shagger (when he was a hairdresser in South Africa he had a separate 'studio' next door where he could see to lady customers privately) and persistent liar (for example, his claims to have been a professional boxer, with the only evidence a publicity still from an early film he told people was real), but thoroughly professional (his part in one of the medical ones - Matron? - was played in bed because he was ill in real life) to the end.

I think the most impressive thing is how his lengthy affair with Babs Windsor was kept out of the public eye for a number of years.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 12:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Presumably for safety reasons...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 12:11 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

Revive? My local vid store has: At Your Convenience, Camping, Girls, and Cleo. Which one should I rent first? I think I rented At Your Convenience before but didn't really get it. Perhaps it's a guy thing?

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 24 May 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

At Your Convenience is about toilets and union strikes and such. Camping is about camping. I don't think I've seen the others. Get Camping.

― You're the Wish You Are I Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 24 May 2004 00:06 (twenty-one years ago)

No, get At Your Convenience, it's the most like a film of all of them!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 24 May 2004 00:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah you're right, Convenience is less silly, and it has a decent plot. Get that.

― You're the Wish You Are I Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 24 May 2004 00:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Cleo also had a decent plot ;-)

― eriik, Monday, 24 May 2004 08:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of the ones recommended here are the best ones, but add:

Carry on Regardless (Stanley Unwin's in it!)

Carry On Constable (...or is he in this one? Anyway, in both the star of the film is Kenneth Connor, who I reckon was the most talented comic actor in the whole troupe)

Carry On Cowboy (which, in a fit of reverie, Kenneth Williams once described as the only genuine British Western ever... I think he was right too)

Carry On Spying (silly)

Carry On Jack (also silly and also with Bernard Cribbins who I like)

Carry On Screaming (Harry! H! Corbett! "Foul feet smell something awful" but, most of all, Fenella Fielding perfecting the Goth chick look - down boy!)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 24 May 2004 09:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Get Cleo, Mary. Camping is better than Convenience, but if you didn't get the latter then I doubt the former will do much for you. Cleo is terrific.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 24 May 2004 09:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Cleo is terrific, as is Amanda Barrie. Camping is starting to hit the skids, and Convenience is a wonderful tug at the forlock of the management in the weird and wonderful world of British Industrial Relations. It's a shame they don't have Doctor, as this is the best IMO, but then I have watched it over 200 times.

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 24 May 2004 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I agree with Dave B. Camping is the beginning of the end, really. I don't think Baps Windsor does a lot for the series, really, especially since she can't deliver her lines properly for sucking her gut in, and she doesn't actually have big tits, she just has a game willingness to show them off. So any of the ones that don't feature her are going to be better.

I like Cabbie, Screaming, Spying, Up the Khyber, and At Your Convenience. Screaming is my official favourite, because I think it's objectively one of the best in terms of gag quality, but secretly my favourite is Cabbie, because I just love how gleefully sexist it is.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 24 May 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

The best thing about Carry On Girls is when Miss Dawn Brakes is having a cat fight with Babs on the hotel reception floor and she nearly comes out of her dress. Now she really was proper busty.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 24 May 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Kenneth Williams really is at his best as Caesar in Carry On Cleo. At least, he seems to enjoy his part (for a change, as I read in his diaries he hated most of them!).

My favorite scene then must be from Don't lose your head. Charles Hawtrey as the Duke the Pommes Frites who is let to the guillotine, while he's still reading "the latest one by De Sade" (insert typical haughty hawtry laugh)
When he's finally dragged out of his carriage and pushed to the guillo by the impatient police, he delivers his wonderful lines (that almost sounds like his own motto): "thank you, but I'm quite capable of making my own way!" (insert typical haughty hawtry laugh) skipping slightly as he climbs the steps to his death penalty (and is then rescued).

― eriik, Monday, 24 May 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.carryonline.com/carry/pictures/Lobby/head5.jpg

Citizen Bidet: Put That Book Down!

― eriiik, Monday, 24 May 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

My favourite single Carry On moment is Hawtrey getting delirious on the ship in Carry On Jack. I haven't seen it in over 20 years, but still.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 24 May 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Captain: Like to go to sea, lad?
Hawtrey: Like to go to see, what? (giggle)

― erik, Tuesday, 25 May 2004 07:14 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Henry! How did it get missed? (Thanks Marcello for reminding me on some other thread)

http://www.carryonline.com/carry/pictures/Lobby/henrylobby4.jpg

http://www.carryonline.com/carry/pictures/Lobby/henrylobby7.jpg

http://www.carryonline.com/carry/pictures/Lobby/henrylobby2.jpg

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Carry on Doctor- having seen it over 150 times, I can't help but say this.

-- Dave B (dave.boyl...) (webmail), February 24th, 2004 4:02 PM.

It's a shame they don't have Doctor, as this is the best IMO, but then I have watched it over 200 times.

-- Dave B (dave.boyl...) (webmail), May 24th, 2004 12:11 PM

At that rate I reckon you've seen it over 400 times by now.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 16:35 (twenty years ago)

Anyway to answer the question, search; Carry on Sergeant, anything with Jim Dale in (70 this year, blimey), Carry on Henry. Destroy; everything else.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

Correction, search Up the Khyber too, getting Dale confused with Roy Castle.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

Sergeant is charming – and funny – but doesn't fit comfortably with the others. After all, it was conceived as an Ealing (romantic) comedy and wasn't the slightest bit risque. The most outrageous it got was when Hawtrey had just returned from the loo to be asked by the sergeant (corporal?) where he'd been, and he replied, "Do I have to say?". Compare to 14 years later, when Convenience came out.

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)

And Bob Monkhouse is revolting in it.

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:08 (twenty years ago)

Convenience is my all time favourite. Hattie Jacques' race-horse predicting budgie, Charles Hawtrey's strip-poker sessions, classic Trade Union bashing, the day trip to the seaside, Sid and Joan's unrequited love affair. It's beautiful and makes me sick with nostalgia for a working class culture that was kind of dying out even as I was growing up watching it.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:17 (twenty years ago)

sorry but destroy all.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:33 (twenty years ago)

... is wrong.

Destroy: England.

Did I say that before?

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:41 (twenty years ago)

I think so, but it can't be said often enough. Patrick Mower? (He) don't make me laugh.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

dinner party scene in Khyber > Luis Bunuel: discuss

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm, maybe = Bunuel. That whole film's got a lot of surrealist scenes going on: the synchronised kilt-lifting, the spies dressed as women cavorting in the harem.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

Yes. The closing scene:

Flag: "I'm backing britain"
AlfieBass: "You know, they're all mad"

Yes they are. And not just the ones in the film!

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

That was Peter Butterworth not Alfie Bass!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 09:59 (twenty years ago)

Carry on Loving isn't bad - computer dating 35 years ago – apart from the final food fight scene. And Cabby is fairly good I seem to remember. Not one that gets shown on tv frequently though.

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:08 (twenty years ago)

Am I right in thinking that Cabby was the only one in the whole series which didn't have Kenneth Williams in it?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:30 (twenty years ago)

nOoh, not by a longie.

Even allowing for the one made after he died.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:33 (twenty years ago)

I read somewhere a long time ago that Jim Dale appeared in more CO's than anyone else.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:34 (twenty years ago)

A quick check at Carry On Line reveals that to be untrue.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

Ken didn't appear in Cabby, Up the Jungle, Girls or England. One good one, one mediocre and 2 shit.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:48 (twenty years ago)

And yet he came back right at the end for Carry On Emmanuelle. Is that the saddest film ever made, in every sense of the word?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

It's horrible isn't it? We saw it on video, early 80s, thinking "hooray! new Carry On movie!" and then my 13 year-old self just squirmed in embarrassment, as did my parents, as we watched this sub-soft-core piece of crap.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

And indeed, if you read the KW Diaries, he only did it for the money because at the time he literally wasn't getting any other work. Heartbreaking.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 11:04 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

I used to love the big battle scene in Khyber, it was very exciting.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 19 August 2008 11:37 (seventeen years ago)

seventeen years pass...

IMDb trivia says that Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) became - one assumes temporarily - the most successful British film ever in the US. And that prior to that point, that particular distinction was held by... get this...

Carry On Nurse (1959)

(Can this possibly be true?)

Anyway, I'm currently enjoying the new podcast called Carry On Up the Podcast, in which the two hosts watch one Carry On film a week, evidently in an attempt to watch them all in chronological order.

― Josefa, Thursday, 18 September 2025 00:29 (six months ago)

one month passes...

So now I've seen all the Carry On films up to 1963. I'd say Carry On Nurse (1959) and Carrry on Cruising (1962) are the funniest to this point. Carry On Cabby (1963) has the strongest plot of them all but I feel it's not quite as funny as those others. In terms of actors, I think Kenneth Connor is very good, bc even though he typically plays pathetic characters he's always very likable. Kenneth Williams is wonderful, though his flared nostrils are a bit scary. Liz Fraser is always understated and excellent. Joan Sims is very versatile and charismatic, though she is absent in the '62-'63 run of films.

― Josefa, Wednesday, 22 October 2025 23:18 (five months ago)

What about Kenneth Griffith? Is he in any of them?

― Nicholas Raybeat (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 22 October 2025 23:23 (five months ago)

Thought Liz Fraser was good in all the Peter Sellers movies I saw her in a few weeks back.

― Nicholas Raybeat (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 22 October 2025 23:24 (five months ago)

Do you mean Kenneth Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire?

― Josefa, Wednesday, 22 October 2025 23:24 (five months ago)

Oh, there is a Kenneth Griffith actor, sorry no. He's not in these films thus far.

― Josefa, Wednesday, 22 October 2025 23:27 (five months ago)

I don't think Kenneth Griffith was ever in a Carry On, hard imagine him doing so once he became a filmmaker himself and started taking himself very seriously. Kenneth Cope however was famously the bolshy union leader, Vic Spanner, in "Carry On At Your Convenience".

― Webinar in Wetherspoons (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 October 2025 08:18 (five months ago)

Joan Sims is very versatile and charismatic, though she is absent in the '62-'63 run of films.

The scene where Joan Sims gets drunk at the wine-tasting party in "Carry On Regardless" is one of the highlights of the entire series.

― Webinar in Wetherspoons (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 October 2025 08:22 (five months ago)

Cope is also in Carry on Matron (1972), playing the Jim Dale part.

Carry on Cabby the first in the series to be written by Talbot Rothwell aka Talbot Nelson Conn "Tolly" Rothwell, OBE and the Carry Ons start to feel less like 'proper' films and more like demented adult pantos or revues.

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 23 October 2025 08:48 (five months ago)

I was just joking about Kenneth Griffith. Only mentioned him since there were a bunch of other Kenneths named.

― Nicholas Raybeat (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 23 October 2025 11:40 (five months ago)

I thought so but it gave me an opportunity to mention Vic Spanner.

https://carryon.org.uk/images/convenience_23421_.jpg

― Webinar in Wetherspoons (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 October 2025 11:53 (five months ago)

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