More and more, we find ourselves preferring the earlier ‘Ons, before the Team As We Know Them became consolidated, and this entry – released in the same year as Carry On Cabby – tediously milked personal obsession fans! – we’ve always liked, despite (or maybe due to) it featuring very little of the core squad aside from an always fruitful Williams/Hawtrey pairing, and a bit of Jim Dale. Plus there’s that queasy cod-epic Technicolor look to the whole thing, including, we bet, props and sets borrowed from your proper swashbucklers, like they did with Cleo. Either way, we’re a long way from that brown overcast field plus two tins of brilliant green Cover Plus in Camping. Bernard Cribbins and Juliet Mills as the nominal leads may disappoint some, but not us, and the later films never assembled a supporting cast so rich – Donald Houston, Patrick Cargill, George Woodbridge, Anton Rodgers, Frank Forsyth, Marianne Stone and Vivienne Ventura.
Matty
September 22, 2011 at 10:18 pm
An odd one this as few of the regular cast are there (I think Jim Dale shows up at the start but buggers off pretty early). Entertaining enough stuff even if it all gets a bit dark and weird for a Carry On later in the film as well with talk of having to amputate poor Kenny’s leg. And I know the series hardly relies on realism but the suspension of disbelief required to accept that everyone on the ship thought Juliet Mills was a man was a bit much – had the crew never seen a woman?
richardpd
July 20, 2019 at 3:07 pm
Good fun even though there’s hardly any of the usual Carry On team present. Even then Jim Dale is in just 2 scenes as the Sedan Chair carrier.
At least Bernard Cribbins was a semi-regular after this one; & Kenneth Cope is an extra, making fuller appearances in later films.
I think it was originally intended not to be a Carry On film, like Mind Your Stern’s “close but no cigar” status.
A lot of the sets, costumes & props were leftovers from HMS Defiant.