The Carry On Films Thread

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Because I don't think there's been one before. Best/worst films/actors/actresses? Love/hate whole genre? Whaddya think.

Missus.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

horrible. but why not add:

Lets Have a Mass Debate!

― Menelaus Darcy, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For some reason my favourite (vaguely recalled) moment is Charles Hawtrey babbling about not wanting to go to sea, Mummy in 'Carry on Jack'. Later 70s ones are very much in the nostalgic but awful category. 'Carry on Emmanuelle' is as irredeemably bad as they say.

― Nick, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Girl on a Motorcycle taking sides - Marianne vs Babs. I know who's the real 60s icon!

I don't like the hospital ones. I do like Camping, Khyber, Don't Lose Your Head.

― Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm not really bothered with them either way TBH. i suppose if i was being hardcore feminist i could find something offensive about them, but they're just a bit lame and oh, so dated. Babs is good though, i do like a bit of Babs!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ooer missus that's what Ronnie and Reggie said.

BUT THEY WOZ GOOD BOYS HEARTS OF GOLD ONLY EVER KILLED THEIR OWN

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I only recently learned that my father had been a Carry On fan. I was shocked.

― rosemary, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dance on their grave. Go on. Do it.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a moment during Carry On Abroad (set in the pictueresque spanish resort of ElsBells fact fans) where I actually burst out loud laughing. As I recall, Sid James (or someone else interchangeable within the films) was admiring the view from his large french windows, went to open them and...walked right through. Hahaha!!! I like Carry on Doctor (Frankie Howerd!), the early ones aren't bad either...Carry on Sergeant (I think) and Carry on Spying spring to mind. And, to be honest, I do think Hawtrey and Williams could be immensely funny in them.

― Bill, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why don't you like Carry On films, Robin?

― Tom, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Carry On Cabby reminds me of something I'm glad this country has left behind.

Carry On Abroad reminds me of something I'm very pleased this country has left behind.

Carry On At Your Convenience ... you get the picture, only times ten.

Carry On Teacher I suppose I find more interesting than the later ones but I'm still happy we've left it behind: Morrissey's constant drawing of allusions to it in the late 80s was the first really tiresome thing he did in his career, and horribly predictive.

Apart from that, it was never my kind of humour.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Carry On Cleo is the best, poss Carry On Screaming next best, i reckon

also, taking sides, Charles Hawtrey vs Kenneth Williams?

― michael, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Khyber and Don't lose Your Head were - if memory serves - made as separate films, later co-opted into the series by the addition of Carry On to their natural born titles. And those were the best two - along with Cleo.

Only they're supposed to be rubbish. That's what's good about them: a cultural nemisis to anything with taste. If Carry on Columbus had been funny, it may well have been a been a better film, but it would have been a travesty.

― Magnus, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It was a travesty in every possible way simply through being made in 1992, and could not have been otherwise.

Thank God they didn't make that "Carry On Texas" pisstake of Dallas they'd planned to do in 1988. I shit you not: the deaths of K. Williams and C. Hawtrey buggered that one up, and they should have left it *there*.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I dislike Don't Lose Your Head because of the awkwardness of the title

― jamesmichaelward, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

carry on columbus was a stinker. emanuelle is *literally* unbearable to watch -- i've not managed to sit through it all, and looked away through most that i did.

Screaming, Nurse, Doctor, Khyber (o course), 5 stars.

I really enjoyed the Terry Johnston play too. I'm afraid to say i enjoy a lot of regrettable comedy, a good example being the Are You Being Served Movie which i've seen too many times, certainly more times than is healthy (i.e more than zero)

― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Khyber's dinner party scene = hilariously brilliant.

― chris, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Also Khyber's dinner party scene = very blunt social commentary of a sort I'd have thought wd appeal to Robin C. Sorry to go on, Robin, but I'm just fascinated how certain early-70s English artefacts (eg bubblegum singles and yes I will get back to you re. that hopefully tonight) thrill you and others appal you when they seem to me recognisably the products of the same mentality and society.

― Tom, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Partially it's just personal taste and also generational differences: the bubblegum singles you mention aren't full of nudge-nudge-wink- wink humour whereas Carry On ... well, nuff said, and that kind of humour is passing more and more into history (look back 15 years - long after the Carry Ons were hopelessly out of time - and compare the unashamed fart and pee references of S. Cox and C. Moyles to the did-he-really-say-that grinnery of "The Sloppy Bit", "Willy On The Plonker", Gervaise the Hairdresser etc.). And the difference between Carry On humour and other historical British things which as you rightly say fascinate me is that I never liked it or was fascinated by it in the first place.

But it's also the fact that I've never actually seeked out any of the Carry On films and actually concentrated on watching them as I have with Ealing, Boulting Brothers etc: they've always been something I've been indifferent to in the background. I'm not familiar with the scene Tom mentions and quite possibly I could find it fascinating if I gave it more time, but I suppose the ultimate answer to Tom's puzzlement is that there are some things which, to me, reflect the good side of a particular "mentality and society" and others which reflect the bad side.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

fourteen years pass...

Just watched 'Carry On Constable' : did the scriptwriters sneak in the line 'You Stupid Constable' or was it an accident?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 14:35 (nine years ago)

bearing in mind that in British comedies of the era (or just after, at least) 'berk' was often used as code for a much-ruder word (berk short for 'Berkeley Hunt'.. you can guess the rest) then i'd wager it wasn't an accident.

― piscesx, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 14:54 (nine years ago)

It didn't sound like one, just seemed a bit early (1960) to try it.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 30 December 2015 15:17 (nine years ago)

I only recently learned that my father had been a Carry On fan. I was shocked.
― rosemary, Tuesday, 11 December 2001 01:00 (14 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All dads are Carry On fans. I'm watching Carry On Screaming with mine right now. It doesn't make much sense

― paolo, Thursday, 31 December 2015 17:23 (nine years ago)

four years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3NS84flTYc

Carry On.... Up The Death Star

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 3 June 2020 10:32 (five years ago)

that made me laugh a lot more than it shd've

― hip posts without flaggadocio (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 3 June 2020 10:38 (five years ago)

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