Talbot Rothwell packs it in to make way for Benny Hill writer Dave Freeman, who admittedly makes a pig’s ear of reheating the Camping setup but does provide the best film parody of the series, namely the little rip-off of the Blanket Wall scene of It Happened One Night, a nice little comedy of the sort Frank Capra made before he started mainlining sugar, with Clark Gable as a wisecracking newspaper man on the lam with wealthy heiress Claudette Colbert (a setup that was to be used about 37 more times by the time America entered WWII). After the most-copied hitchhiking gag in the world, and a rousing chorus of Hope It’s Chips on a crowded bus, the original Odd Couple bundle into a motel chalet, with the saucy Gable hanging a blanket between their beds as mutual hanky panky deterrent. This is rigorously, er, homaged by Freeman, with Elke Sommer and Ken as Gable and Colbert respectively, and an ending Capra and his writers never thought of – an exploding fag and a bit of Heinz/blood confusion panic. Oh, and that Butterworth and Sims reunited scene (‘Daphne?’ ‘Henry!’) is oddly touching too, but that’s probably down to the actors.
Tom Ronson
March 31, 2022 at 7:35 pm
Windsor Davies always seemed strangely out of place in the Carry On franchise. I enjoy his performance in this one, but I usually catch myself thinking ‘Yeah, Sid would have been better.’ David ‘I was in Cockleshell Heroes!’ Lodge has a nice scene-stealing cameo as a pub landlord.