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Carry On England

Nearly the last, and almost certainly the least of the ‘Ons (…Columbus, needless to say, doesn’t count at all). Kenneth Connor (Captain S. Melly – oh, do stop it, Aggers!)  and Windsor Davies run a handily threadbare army training camp. Patrick ‘Target’ Mower (Sergeant Len Able) and Judy ‘Poldark’ Geeson (Sergeant Tilly Willing) head the shag-happy dorms of enlisted folks. Jack ‘Waaa-hey! Gerroff!’ Douglas is the sole saving grace in this not-even-car-accident-interesting effort, alongside Joan Sims, Melvyn Hayes, Peter Butterworth, Peter Jones, Diane ‘Rag Trade’ Langton and Johnny Briggs.

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Lee James Turnock

    August 31, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    This one really is the worst of the worst.

  2. Glenn Aylett

    May 21, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    The Carry On magic had evaporated by the mid seventies, they’d tried to make them cruder to compete with the Confessions films and failed badly, and the great actors from the sixties films had left the series. My dad can remember queues half a mile long to see Carry Ons in their sixties heyday, but from 1972 onwards, no one was interested.

    • George White

      May 22, 2018 at 5:31 pm

      I THINK THE SERIES PEAKS WITH MATRON and ABROAD. Girls is a step down, Dick a failure to capture past glories, Behind almost works but it’s already past it. England is bad, Emmannuelle is astonishing in its awfulness – bits don’t look like a film, more like an ad campaign i.e. the flashbacks.
      Carry On Dallas I do wish was made. It’d have been fabulously awful. Emmannuelle is a mixed bag. Some performances work – Mayall, Crowe, Lipman, Wilson but Peter Richardson and Clary are awful. And the funky house end theme…

      • Richard16378

        May 22, 2018 at 6:13 pm

        Matron just about works, with Kenneth Cope’s dragging up as a nurse, & Sid trying to be a foreign doctor are good fun.

        I’ve not seen many of the later ones but TVC’s old Carry On review reckoned Emmannuelle had the least dignified performance with Kenny’s bum in shot.

        I heard Carry On Dallas was scuppered by Lorrimer wanting more than the budget in royalties.

        I assume you mean Columbus when you mention Emmannuelle for a 2nd time. Maureen Lipman was embarrassed enough by her performance to want to put it into Room 101.

  3. Richard16378

    May 22, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    Carry On At Your Convenience seemed to be the beginning of the end as far as box office performance, as many people were put off by it’s anti trade union stance, even though it’s got plenty of good moments.

  4. Droogie

    May 22, 2018 at 3:26 pm

    There’s a scene in Convenience where sexually frustrated Richard O’Callaghan takes Jacki Piper on a date to the cinema to see a supposedly educational documentary that’s really just a porn movie, which shocks and disgusts her. I wonder if Martin Scorsese ever saw this movie, as there’s an identical scene a few years later in Taxi Driver where Robert De Niro does the same thing to Cybil Shepherd!

  5. Tom Ronson

    March 31, 2022 at 7:44 pm

    There’s a recurring rumour doing the rounds that The Beatles’ Apple company invested in this film. Not one of their wiser moves. The funniest joke, a variation on the old ‘I know a Fokker (fucker) when I see one’ gag beloved of Stan Boardman, ended up on the cutting room floor.

    • Droogie

      May 7, 2022 at 9:34 am

      There’s a bizarre 1969 movie comedy called Sophie’s Place ( also called Crooks & Coronets ) that actually uses the Fokker gag. The film is about a gang of American crooks in England trying to swindle the owner of a stately home, and has one of the craziest casts ever. Telly Savalas, Caesar Romero and Warren Oates play the Yank contingent, while the Brits include Harry H Corbett, Edith Evans, Hattie Jacques and Nosher Powell! I remember seeing this as a kid on TV when it was shown one afternoon and thinking the Fokker gag that closes the movie ( said by Hattie Jacques to Harry H Corbett) was rather rude. Looking back, I’m probably more shocked that Warren Oates and Arthur Mullard were once in a movie together.

      • Sidney Balmoral James

        May 7, 2022 at 6:36 pm

        I’ve seen this film – and probably the same Sunday afternoon showing about thirty five years ago you saw. It’s not too bad, Harry H. Corbett plays a comic gangster. It’s one of a small genre of ‘helping a stately home out’ comedies, see also Candleshoe, Fitzwilly (which must have been something of inspiration, as also has Edith Evans as the lady of the house). There may be others!

  6. Glenn Aylett

    May 7, 2022 at 3:05 pm

    Arthur Mullard. a name that will mean nothing to anyone under 50, was one of those actors that cropped up in any film or sitcom in the sixties and seventies where a gor blimey cockney who was on the large side and getting on in years was needed. While he came across as this loveable cockney oaf on screen, in real life, Mullard was anything but likeable as he was a National Front supporter and there were some very dark things in his private life, according to his daughter.

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