Carry On… Up the Khyber (1968)

India, 1895. When a local discovers that members of the colonial 3rd Foot and Mouth Regiment are wearing pants under their famous kilts, the British reputation is left in tatters…

What’s it spoofing? The British Raj, a period of colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent (1858-1947). Although obviously set in other places entirely, Michael Caine movie Zulu (1964) and Charlton Heston’s Khartoum (1966) are also being referenced.

Funniest moment: The dinner scene at the end – the British characters calmly and serenely getting on with their meal while the entire building is attacked by the local warlord.

The Big 10:

* Sid James (9) plays Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond, the randy British governor.

* Joan Sims (11) is Sir Sidney’s working-class wife, Joan, who’s so smitten with the Khasi that she betrays her husband in hope of a bunk-up.

* Kenneth Williams (15) plays the Khasi of Kalabar, the local native leader who wants to incite anti-British sentiment. Williams mostly uses a vaguely ‘foreign’ accent for the part, but gets laughs when he slips into earthy English if the character is annoyed.

* Charles Hawtrey (15) is Private James Widdle, the soldier who’s caught wearing undergarments. His regiment’s fearful reputation comes from being known as the ‘Devils in skirts’, so his affection for underpants is a problem.

* Bernard Bresslaw (5) plays Bundgit Din, an Indian warrior. The name is a spoof of Rudyard Kipling’s Gunga Din.

* Peter Butterworth (6) plays missionary Brother Belcher. The Brits use a honey trap to blackmail him into helping them.

Notable others:

* Julian Holloway plays Sir Sidney’s aide-de-camp, Major Shorthouse (pronounced with a posh accent, it sounds like ‘short arse’).

* Angela Douglas appears in a Carry On film for the final time, as Princess Jelhi, the Khasi’s daughter. She plays the sitar in a couple of scenes.

* Terry Scott (Sgt Major MacNutt) was in Carry On Sergeant in 1958, but hasn’t appeared since.

* Roy Castle, in his only Carry On, essentially replaces Jim Dale in the young romantic part. His earnest Captain Keene falls for Princess Jelhi.

* Alexandra Dane is Busti, a well-endowed member of another Carry On harem. Dane also had a tiny role in Carry On Doctor.

* Valerie Leon, uncredited, also plays a girl in the harem.

* Wanda Ventham appears as a wife of the Khasi (he has many), who visits Sir Sidney and offers to sleep with him in reparation for Joan running off with the Khasi.

* Peter Gilmore has a small role as Private Ginger Hale, one of the 3rd Foot and Mouth Regiment.

Top totty: Alexandra Dane.

Kenneth Williams says: “Got the script of Up the Khyber Carry On film. They’re offering me the part of Khasi. Which is Hindustani for lavatory [note: it isn’t]. I imagine they think it’s appropriate.” – Monday 12 February 1968 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, pp319-320)

“First day’s work on Up the Khyber. It was a lousy little scene between me and Sid James but he blows a raspberry in the middle which will get a big laugh. Roy [Castle] is v. good in the rushes & photographs v handsomely: he is incredibly naïve & ingenious.” – Tuesday 16 April 1968 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, pp324-325)

Review: Well, it’s based on a ridiculously silly premise. And you have to turn a blind eye to yet more ‘comedy’ racism. But while this is perhaps not the masterpiece some people think – it once made a BFI list of the 100 best British films – it’s still broadly enjoyable stuff. There’s also a mildly interesting structure in that there’s no lead character. Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Roy Castle all have vague claims on that position, yet no one really drives the story.

Eight fakirs out of 10

Carry On Doctor (1967)

The story of the goings-on in a British hospital, following patients, doctors and visitors alike…

What’s it spoofing? Self-referentialism hits the Carry On series. In some ways, this is a pastiche of Carry On Nurse. There’s even an intertextual gag about it: “Oh, no, you don’t,” says Frankie Howerd as a nurse approaches with a daffodil, “I saw that film.” And there’s also another bit of postmodern tomfoolery: in the hospital’s lobby hangs a portrait of James Robertson Justice, star of the rival Doctor films (1954-1970).

Funniest moment: Charlie Roper (Sid James) is having his blood pressure measured when he meets Nurse Sandra (Barbara Windsor). “Hi,” she says to him, smiling. The blood-pressure machine explodes.

The Big 10:

* Joan Sims (10) again shows her versatility: she’s almost unrecognisable playing the meek, largely deaf Chloe Gibson. Sims was originally offered the role of the matron, but pointed out that Hattie Jacques should always play that part.

* Sid James (8) had recently had a heart attack, so was given a role that mostly consists of lying in bed. Charlie Roper, ironically, has nothing wrong with him – he’s faking illness so he can stay in hospital.

* Bernard Bresslaw (4) plays Ken Biddle, a patient with a foot injury who’s smitten on a woman in the female ward. (This film, it’s his turn to drag up.)

* Peter Butterworth (5) plays Mr Smith, a patient who’s had a lump removed from a delicate area.

* Charles Hawtrey (14) appears as Mr Barron, a patient who’s having sympathy pains for his wife’s labour.

* Hattie Jacques (7) returns after seven films away, and is essentially reprising her part from Carry On Nurse. It’s the second of five times she played a matron in the series – here, the character has an infatuation with Dr Tinkle.

* Jim Dale (9) is a young, dashing doctor called James Kilmore. Dale is given lots of pratfalls and physical comedy to deal with.

* Kenneth Williams (14) plays Dr Kenneth Tinkle, the hyper and arrogant registrar. It’s one of Williams’s more OTT turns, though he initially turned the part down.

* Barbara Windsor (2) plays nurse Sandra May. She first appears in her nightie then totters through the film on high heels, attracting phwoars and lustful looks wherever she goes.

Notable others:

* Frankie Howerd appears in a Carry On for the first time, playing faith healer Francis Bigger. When Howerd initially turned the part down, it was offered to Kenneth Williams, but he ended up playing Dr Tinkle.

* Peter Gilmore crops up again, playing a bored ambulance driver who – along with a colleague – appears at various points in the film like a Greek chorus.

* Anita Harris returns from Follow That Camel, now playing Nurse Clarke.

* Dilys Laye (Cruising, Spying) plays Mavis Winkle, the woman with whom Ken Biddle is eager to get to know.

* Julian Holloway plays Simmons, an X-ray operator.

* Dandy Nichols (Till Death Us Do Part) has a cameo as Charlie’s wife.

* Brian Wilde (Porridge, Last of the Summer Wine) plays a salesman from a rubber-sheet company, who Bigger mistakes for an undertaker.

Top totty: Barbara Windsor. “What a lovely looking pear!” she says as she waddles up to a fruit-eating ambulance driver. “You took the words right out of my mouth!” he leers back.

Kenneth Williams says: “They delivered the script of Carry On Doctor today and I read it. It’s really a v. good vehicle for Frankie Howerd but all the other parts are lousy. I think that is it. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I wrote a nice letter to Peter Rodgers [producer] saying I didn’t want to play the part.” – Thursday 10 August 1967 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p309)

“They are showing Carry On Doctor in the ship’s cinema today at 5 o’c [Williams was on a cruise holiday]. They had it coming out as well! I’m staying in the cabin. See enough of my face in the mirror every day.” – Thursday 13 February 1969 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p344)

Review: Of the 10 actors with the most Carry On appearances, only Kenneth Connor is missing from this cast, so the film has a certain definitive quality about it. We’re back to a contemporary setting for the first time since Carry On Spying (six films ago) and to ‘real people’ for the first time since Carry On Cabby (eight films ago). Also – to keep the statistical theme going – it’s the series’s second of four hospital-set films. Like Carry On Nurse, there’s no real overarching plot, except for a loose thread about Kilmore’s job that builds to a climax, but it’s good knockabout fun.

Eight specimen jars out of 10

Follow That Camel (1967)

When Bertram Oliphant ‘Bo’ West is disgraced during a game of cricket, he runs off to join the French Foreign Legion…

What’s it spoofing? Numerous French Foreign Legion stories, specifically PC Wren’s 1924 adventure novel Beau Geste and its movie adaptations. This is the second and final film in the series not to have the term ‘Carry On’ in its title.

Funniest moment: When told that Arab men aren’t allowed to enter their own harem tent to see the women, Bo West says, “What’s the good of having them all? It’s like playing cricket with no bails. There’s nothing to knock off.”

The Big 10:

* Jim Dale (8) plays Bertram Oliphant ‘Bo’ West.

* Peter Butterworth (4) is Simpson, West’s gentleman’s gentleman who also joins the Foreign Legion. He gets some cross-dressing to do.

* Joan Sims (9) is terrific as Zig-Zig, a fiery, sultry, exotic local woman. “I have a good ass, no?” she asks after giving Sgt Nocker a lift on her donkey.

* Bernard Bresslaw (3) plays another lazy ethnic stereotype – Sheikh Abdul Abulbul.

* Kenneth Williams (13) uses a severe Nazi-like accent as Commandant Maximillian Burger.

* Charles Hawtrey (13) plays Burger’s second-in-command, Captain Le Pice. The actor originally wanted to play Simpson, thinking (rightly) that it was a funnier part.

Notable others:

* Angela Douglas plays Lady Jane Ponsenby, Bo’s girlfriend who abandons him when he’s accused of cheating at cricket. When she realises he was innocent, she heads off to bring him home from the Foreign Legion – en route, she has a series of hilariously deadpan sexual encounters.

* Peter Gilmore has another small role, playing Humphrey Bagshaw, the guy who accuses West of cheating. Feeling guilty, he then both hangs and shoots himself (but survives).

* Phil Silvers was paid a fortune (£32,000 – five times what Kenneth Williams was earning) and given top billing for playing cheeky rogue Sgt Nocker. He replaced Sid James, who was busy on sitcom George and the Dragon and in the event had a heart attack while Follow That Camel was being filmed. Silvers was a huge star, thanks to playing Sgt Bilko in hit comedy The Phil Silvers Show (1955-1959). He gets to wear his non-period horn-rimmed glasses and deliver dialogue to camera a few times. Contemporary press reports made the probably bogus claim that Woody Allen was also offered the role.

* Julian Holloway appears in a Carry On for a first time, as a cheeky train conductor. “I just want to punch your ticket,” he says to Lady Jane before closing the blinds and doing just that.

* Anita Harris plays a belly dancer – an odd casting choice, seeing how she doesn’t have one.

Top totty: The harem is a sight and a half.

Kenneth Williams says: “I had tea at the Dorchester on Saturday with Phyllis Silvers [sic] and we were joined by Dick Van Dyke and Yul Brynner. I would like to have heard them talk but they didn’t get a chance with PS ranting on and on – ‘my lovely wife and those five beautiful daughters have left me, and I have had this operation on my eye and believe me fellahs I am only half the man that I was – why even one of the waiters here – who remembers me from way back when I did this USO show with Frank Sinatra – he said that he hardly recognised me from the old days…’ etc etc.” – Kenneth Williams to the Hon. George Borwick, 14 June 1967 (The Kenneth Williams Letters, p62)

“We were reduced to watching Carry On Camel with me being remarkably good as the German Commandant and Jim Dale remarkably attractive as Beau [sic]. It was v well written & actually had a tag line! Angela Douglas was super! Really attractive & effectively ironic. Oh! this girl has been endlessly underrated.” – Saturday 21 December 1985 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p732)

Review: An enjoyably daft comedy adventure. There’s rather a lot of racism, though.

Seven mirages out of 10

Don’t Lose Your Head (1966)

Two Englishmen rescue aristocrats from execution in revolutionary France, but Citizen Camembert is determined to find them…

What’s it spoofing? Emma Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novels (1905-1940), which were actually still in copyright and needed a skating-on-thin-ice legal letter from producer Peter Rodgers denying that they were a source material. This film doesn’t have the term ‘Carry On’ in its title because the series had switched to a new distributor (The Rank Organisation) and the old one (Anglo-Amalgamated) said they owned the brand. Since the disagreement’s been settled, the film has sometimes been promoted on TV and home video as the clunky Carry On – Don’t Lose Your Head. For some reason, IMDB lists it as Carry On Pimpernel.

Funniest moment: Joan Sims puts such a dismissive, derogatory quality on the two-word phrase in a certain line – “My brother, the count, wishes to meet him…” – that the pun is hilariously obvious. Tickled by the joke, the actress actually begins to smirk before the shot cuts away. See it here.

The Big 10:

* Kenneth Williams (12) plays Citizen Camembert (aka the Big Cheese).

* Peter Butterworth (3) is Camembert’s sidekick, Citizen Bidet.

* Sid James (7) is back after a film off to play Sir Rodney Ffing (pronounced effing). He’s a master of disguise who, when pretending to be an English fop, has a marked lisp. When he’s out saving aristos, he’s known as the Black Fingernail. Sid James has some ludicrous dragging up to do at one point.

* Jim Dale (7) plays the Black Fingernail’s associate, Lord Darcy Pue. It’s a pretty boring, thankless role.

* Charles Hawtrey (12) is Duc De Pommfrit (these names!), the featured Frenchman that Sir Rodney and Lord Darcy rescue and smuggle back to England.

* Joan Sims (8) is really brilliant as Desiree Dubarry, Camembert’s bored-with-life sister. She plays her working class and a bit dim, and the character is hilarious when putting on airs and graces. There are a lot of jokes about her impressive cleavage.

Notable others:

* Peter Gilmore has another small Carry On role, here playing Robespierre.

* Dany Robin – who was later in Hitchcock’s Topaz – plays Jacqueline, a Frenchwoman who Sir Rodney falls for.

* Jacqueline Pearce appears briefly as a lady at Sir Rodney’s ball who hangs on De Pommfrit’s every word.

Top totty: Dany Robin.

Kenneth Williams says: “Peter [Eade, agent] drove me to Windsor in 40 minutes (motorway) and we saw Don’t Lose Your Head at the local ABC. It wasn’t bad, but I realise there is no need to do all this character make-up. It just doesn’t work for comedy. The thing is to look as pleasant as possible. I really should stop making all these faces too! They’re quite absurd and unfunny. The fight sequences went on too long & Sid James really does look terribly battered and old. V. unattractive when he’s making love to the girls in it – all rather disgusting.” – Thursday 27 April 1967 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, pp302-303)

“Went in to see Louie [his mother] in the evening and found there was nothing but rubbish on the television. Old films! – including Don’t Lose Your Head with me and Jim Dale and Sid James. I was as bad as ever, all posh voice and sneers and convincing no one.” – Sunday 16 December 1973 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p463)

Review: Another genre spoof – it’s now half a dozen films since we had one about ‘real’ people. Sadly, this isn’t quite as successful as the last few, seeming a bit tired, but there’s still some fun. A repeated gag during romantic scenes, where Sid James, Dany Robin and Joan Sims give private asides to the camera, works really well. The sword-fighting climax seems to never end, however.

Seven baskets out of 10

Carry On Screaming! (1966)

When his girlfriend is kidnapped, Albert Potter goes to the police – and their investigation leads to a spooky house, where a brother and sister are conducting strange experiments…

What’s it spoofing? The horror genre, specifically the successful movies then being made by Hammer Films. Also in the pastiche mix are 19th-century literary classics such as Frankenstein (1818), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), the Sherlock Holmes stories (1887-1927) and Dracula (1897), as well as US TV shows The Munsters and The Addams Family (both 1964-1966). The plot owes something to House of Wax, a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price.

Funniest moment: Sergeant Bung’s investigation has brought him and Constable Slobotham to a road with a large, mysterious house on it. Bung: “We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned. What’s the name of this road, Slobotham?” Slobotham: “Avery Avenue.” Bung: “Then we must explore Avery Avenue.”

The Big 10:

* Jim Dale (6) plays Albert Potter, the man whose girlfriend goes missing in the opening scene.

* Peter Butterworth (2) has a dimwit sidekick role for the second film running – Constable Slobotham.

* Joan Sims (7), meanwhile, gets another harridan. She plays Emily, Sgt Bung’s largely bedridden wife who shouts and moans a lot. She also fails to notice when her husband has turned into a monster because she’s too busy having a go at him.

* Bernard Bresslaw (2) plays the large, laconic butler, Sockett. He’s basically a rip-off of Lurch from The Addams Family.

* Kenneth Williams (11) is one of the stars of the show as Dr Orlando Watt, the scientist who’s been experimenting on local women. The character’s been dead for 15 years, but had perfected a regenerative process to resurrect himself. In a throwaway gag about his name, he claims to be Dr Who’s nephew.

* Charles Hawtrey (11) has a small role as Dan Dann, a public-convenience attendant who has vital information for the investigation. It’s more of an acting performance than Hawtrey usually gives us. Originally, another actor (Carry On Cowboy’s Sydney Bromley) was cast in the part, but a press report suggested that the film would suffer financially without Hawtrey, so the producer had a rethink.

Notable others:

* Angela Douglas is back from Carry On Cowboy, though is only in the film briefly at both ends. She plays Doris Mann, the girl who goes missing, so is again teamed up with Jim Dale.

* Harry H Corbett is the film’s lead, in a part written for Sid James: Sergeant Sidney Bung. Conflicting reports have James either busy doing panto or being punished for asking for more money, so Corbett – fresh from four series of Stepton & Son – was drafted in. He’s incredibly funny, and plays the role in a much more earnestly naïve way than surely James would have done. Bung has a Sherlock Holmes pipe and cape, but none of the observational skills.

* Fenella Fielding is sultry, slinky and sexy as Dr Watt’s sister, the vampire-pale Valeria. The part was originally Watt’s daughter, but Kenneth Williams balked at another old-man part after Carry On Cowboy so the concept was changed to siblings.

* Jon Pertwee gets a third hilariously eccentric cameo in the series, playing a Scottish scientist who Bung goes to see for information.

* Frank Thornton, later of Are You Being Served? and Last of the Summer Wine, appears as a millinery shop manager.

Top totty: Fenella Fielding.

Kenneth Williams says: “Pinewood about 9.45. Clothes are vaguely Victoria, frock coat, cravat, etc. and make-up dead pale to look ‘from the dead’, as it were. Everyone on the set was nice to me. Alan Hume, lighting, took me aside and said ‘No joking, Kenny, it really is good to have you back on the set’ – I could hardly reply, I was so touched and pleased. Technicians & stage hands – loads of people came up to me and said lovely things. It was the most beautiful day of the year. It’s a wonderful thing to be liked.” – Friday 14 January 1966 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p271)

Review: Another good one, and another inch-perfect spoof of a movie genre. As an exercise in pastiche it excels – the colour cinematography, for example, is so Hammer – while there’s a good amount of gags and a strong cast of both Carry On regulars and guests. There’s also a fun sing-along title song (‘Sung by Anon,’ read the credits: it was actually a session musician called Ray Pilgrim).

Nine mannequins out of 10

Carry On Cowboy (1965)

Wild West outlaw Johnny Finger rides into Stodge City, kills the sheriff and takes over – so the Government send a man they think is a US Marshal to deal with him…

What’s it spoofing? Westerns, of course. Carry On Cowboy uses the stereotypical tropes, and there are also specific references to Errol Flynn’s Dodge City (1939) and Gary Cooper’s High Noon (1952).

Funniest moment: Jon Pertwee’s cameo as the town’s hard-of-hearing, hard-of-seeing, hard-of-not-bumping-into-things sheriff is pure joy. Physical comedy, gurning, misunderstandings, old-man accent – it’s all here.

The Big 10:

* Sid James (6) is clearly having a great time playing Johnny Finger, aka the Rumpo Kid.

* Kenneth Williams (10) is Judge Burke, who tries to stand up to Johnny but doesn’t have much authority. Williams played the role with a voice he stole from Laurel & Hardy’s producer, Hal Roach, who he’d met in 1961.

* Peter Butterworth (1) appears in a Carry On for the first time – here he plays Doc, who’s basically Judge Burke’s sidekick.

* Joan Sims (6) gets lots of innuendo-laden dialogue as saloon manager Belle Armitage (“My friends call me Ding-Dong…”).

* Jim Dale (5) has been playing increasingly bigger roles over the last few movies – now he’s one of the leads. Marshal P Knutt (it’s his name, not his profession) is an English “drainage, sanitation and garbage-disposal engineer, first class”. When he’s mistaken for a federal marshal he’s sent to Stodge City to clean it up – when he’s rumbled by Judge Burke, they have little choice but to maintain the illusion.

* Bernard Bresslaw (1) is another debutante (unless you count his uncredited cameo as a patient’s feet in Carry On Nurse). He’s got a small role as Little Heap, one of the local Native Americans.

* Charles Hawtrey (10) plays Big Heap, the “Red Indian” leader. Despite the character’s background and heritage, Hawtrey plays it with his own English accent and mannerisms, which makes it all the more funny. (It took me a long, long time to spot the gag that, whatever the time period, Charles Hawtrey always wears 20th-century spectacles.) Big Heap loves firewater: the first of many Hawtrey characters to be written as an old soak.

Notable others:

* Jon Pertwee is hilarious as Sheriff Albert Earp.

* Margaret Nolan, in her first Carry On, plays Miss Jones. She’s the bit of strumpet that the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Affairs is getting off with as his scene begins.

* Angela Douglas plays Annie Oakley, the daughter of Sheriff Earp who comes to Stodge City to get revenge on the man who killed him. She meets Knutt on the journey and they fall in love. She’s a crackshot with a rifle and also gets to perform a song in the saloon.

* Apparently, Richard O’Brien (The Rocky Horror Show, The Crystal Maze) is one of the Native Americans who attack the stagecoach.

* Peter Gilmore plays one of Johnny Finger’s posse.

Top totty: Margaret Nolan. For a proper appreciation, see the ‘Girls’ section of my Goldfinger review.

Kenneth Williams says: “Saw the rushes today. The make-up etc. was all right but the voice took a bit of getting used to. I see what the trouble is. It’s really too old & wheezy for the face. It’s a shame really but of course I’m stuck with it now.” – Friday 23 July 1965 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p261)

“To Studio One, to see the Trade show of Carry On Cowboy: it was marvellous. It’s the first good British comedy in years, the first time a British Western has ever been done, and the first ‘Carry On’ to be a success on every level. It’s got laughs, and pathos, some lovely people and ugly people. Mind you, it’s an alarming thought that they’ll never top this one.” – Wednesday 9 February 1966 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p273)

Review: This film was made for just £230,000 – by comparison, the same year’s Bond film, Thunderball, cost something like £3.5 million – so it’s all the more impressive how good it looks. There are some terrific interior and exterior sets of Stodge City, even if the countryside used for the wide, open frontier is more Surrey than The Searchers. And the pastiche is generally excellent, with cute details such as the way the stand-off is staged, the bold red font used for the titles, and even a Spaghetti Western crash-zoom on Sid James. (The accents, however, are all over the place.) The film also has a decent story (a rarity) and a clever ending (ditto). The cast, meanwhile, seem like they’re having a hoot – especially Sid James and Kenneth Williams, who are playing up the genre conventions for all they’re worth, and Jim Dale and Angela Douglas, neither of whom were in the series’s first six films but make for an excellent leading pair and feel integral. Great fun.

Nine big ones (“I’m from Texas, ma’am, we all got big ones down there!”) out of 10.

Carry On Cleo (1964)

Roman general Mark Antony becomes smitten with Egyptian queen Cleopatra, then plots to murder his friend and leader Julius Caesar…

What’s it spoofing? Famously, the film is a satire of 1963 epic Cleopatra, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. That movie was based at Pinewood Studios before decamping to Italy in search of better weather, so the Carry On team reused some of the leftover sets and costumes. Also being ridiculed are Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt and prehistoric Britain. The film begins with a jokey credit: ‘Original screenplay by Talbot Rothwell, from an original idea by William Shakespeare.’

Funniest moment: Well, it’s the obvious one. Usage in a thousand clips shows and documentaries can’t dull the priceless comedy of “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!” (The line first appeared in a radio show called Take It From Here – Rothwell got permission from the writers to use it here.)

The Big 10:

* Kenneth Connor (8) plays British wheelwright Hengist Pod (a role first offered to Bernard Cribbins). He’s a henpecked husband whose workmanship leaves something to be desired: his wheels are square. But due to plotting reasons, he ends up as Julius Caesar’s personal bodyguard.

* Jim Dale (4) is Horsa, Hengist’s neighbour who invents the window but then becomes a slave.

* Sid James (5) plays Mark Antony. It’s Sid’s first full-on letch in a Carry On movie.

* Kenneth Williams (9) is a childlike Julius Caesar, who gets annoyed when people keep needlessly prompting his ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen…’ speech.

* Charles Hawtrey (9) plays Seneca, Caesar’s father-in-law who gets visions and is a bit of a dirty old man.

* Joan Sims (5) is back after four films off, to play Caesar’s moany wife, Calpurnia.

Notable others:

* Amanda Barrie plays Cleopatra dim and ditzy. Aside from a quick clip at the beginning, she doesn’t join the action until the halfway point. Barbara Windsor was originally cast in the part, but the rumour is she was dropped because she was rude to director Gerald Thomas.

* Shelia Hancock has a small role as Senna Pod, Hengist’s whiney wife. Oddly, all her dialogue seems like it’s been looped.

* Victor Maddern plays Mark Anthony’s second in command.

* Warren Mitchell gets an awful gag in his role as a slave trader. Mark Antony calls him Marcus, so he replies: “I’m Spencius. It’s my brother what’s Marcus. Yeah, we’re in partnership now, you know. Marcus and Spencius.”

* Wanda Ventham appears at the slave auction. When a frumpy old maid outbids her for Horsa, Horsa himself offers to lend Wanda the extra cash.

* Peter Gilmore has another minor role, as a Roman.

* Jon Pertwee makes the first of his four Carry On appearances. He plays an ancient, doddering soothsayer who has a long white beard and a shaky voice.

Top totty: A 29-year-old Wanda Ventham? Yes, please.

Kenneth Williams says: “I got the script of Carry On Cleo today and I must say I think it is very funny.” – Tuesday 12 May 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p234)

“This Roman tunic I’m wearing in the film is really quite attractive. In white and gold. I continually lift it up and expose my cock & everything at the Unit. They’re all rather disgusted and laugh it off, but quite a number of them have remarked ‘O! Kenny! Not again – put it away…’ etc etc.” – Tuesday 4 August 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p238)

Review: This is a very silly spoof, with lots of corny gags and comic anachronisms. The period setting is used to excuse some horrendous sexism and homophobia, but there’s a lot of fun to be had too.

Eight poisonous asps out of 10

Carry On Spying (1964)

When the British Secret Service learn that an enemy agent called Milchmann will be in Vienna for the next 24 hours, they dispatch operative Desmond Simpkins and three trainees to find him…

What’s it spoofing? James Bond. Ian Fleming had written 10 novels and a few short stories by the time Carry On Spying began filming. More significantly, there’d also been two movies released with a third in production. Dr No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964) were all made at Pinewood Studios alongside the Carry Ons, and this spoof actually irritated the Bond producers to the point of threatening legal action. Carry On Spying contains specific 007 references such as From Russia’s gadget-laden briefcase, as well as more general similarities like flamboyant sets, sexy henchwomen and a featured song. But the longer it goes on, the more the satire spreads to also cover classic thrillers such as The Lady Vanishes (1938), Beau Geste (1939), Casablanca (1942) and The Third Man (1949).

Funniest moment: Agent Crump tunnels out of his prison cell, egged on by his colleagues. However, he comes up just a few feet away – ie, still inside the cell.

The Big 10:

* Kenneth Williams (8) plays Desmond Simpkins, the bungling leader of the team. It’s a performance of relentless comic energy. Williams used a ‘snide’ voice/character that would have been familiar to contemporary viewers from radio comedies such as Hancock’s Half-Hour and Beyond Our Ken. We even hear the persona’s catchphrase: “Stop messing about!”

* Barbara Windsor (1) debuts in the Carry On series, playing Daphne Honeybutt (aka Agent Brown Cow). She has a photographic memory, an impressive bust line and slightly more intelligence than her teammates. Windsor is really good and often very funny.

* Charles Hawtrey (8) plays agent Charlie Bind. It was originally scripted as ‘James Bind 006 ½’ but then the Bond producers took umbrage.

* Jim Dale (3) has great fun with the role of Carstairs, the service’s man in Vienna. He’s a master of disguise and looks different each time we see him – as a ticket inspector, a customs official, a cigarette seller, a lady of the night, a waiter and an Arab. His code-word catchphrase – “Café Mozart, 10 o’clock” – gets a bigger laugh each time he says it.

Notable others:

* Eric Barker gets a third Carry On character, here playing the chief of the secret service who’s surrounded by fools.

* Bernard Cribbins returns from the preceding movie to play trainee agent Harold Crump. He has fun comic business when trying to help Daphne into her gun holster, then later has some cross-dressing to do.

* Victor Maddern, who’d also had small roles in Constable and Regardless, plays Milchmann. He was later in a seemingly very good, but sadly lost, Doctor Who serial.

* Dilys Laye sexes it up big time as femme fatal Lila. The character appears first as a nightclub singer, then is revealed to be an enemy agent… then announces she’s a sleeper for a third party. Laye is unrecognisable from her character in Carry On Cruising. At the end of the film, she gets to quote “Stop messing about” at Kenneth Williams – an ad-lib, apparently.

Top totty: Barbara Windsor is *very* fetching in her Algiers outfit.

Kenneth Williams says: “This is the first picture I’ve done the ‘snide’ voice in. I just hope it works.” – Monday 3 February 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p228)

“I must say I like this Barbara Windsor. She is a charming little girl.” – Thursday 6 February 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p228)

“The script of Carry On Spying is so bad that I’m really beginning to wonder. I’ve changed one or two things but the witless vacuity of it all remains.” – Thursday 20 February 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p229)

“On Wednesday I took Sybil Burton to see the trade show of my latest ‘Carry On Spying’. She sat there, speechless. There was hardly a laugh. At one point in the picture I have to come out of a cubicle lavatory and say to a man who is waiting to use it, ‘I should give it a minute if I were you…’ and Syb said, ‘O Ken – that is really terrible!’ and I said yes but we’ve all got to earn a living.’ – Kenneth Williams to Noel Willman, 8 July 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Letters, p55)

Review: This is a joyfully silly film. We get almost every type of humour imaginable: sight gags, wordplay, groaners, satire, physical comedy, cultural stereotypes, arch music cues, intertextual asides… The team of regulars, meanwhile, are dumb, dumber, even dumber and Barbara Windsor – and there’s great energy and comic timing between the four. A full-on spoof of spy movies, this preempts Austin Powers by 33 years and is fantastically entertaining. (It’s also the final black-and-white Carry On.)

Nine fezzes out of 10

Carry On Jack (1963)

Midshipman Albert Poop-Decker, RN, gets a shock when he’s press-ganged onto his own ship during the Napoleonic Wars – a girl called Sally has taken his place…

What’s it spoofing? The film is full of nineteenth-century naval and nautical clichés, and also satirises a pair of high-seas movies from the previous year: Mutiny on the Bounty and HMS Defiant. The opening shot is a deliberate recreation of Arthur William Devis’s famous painting ‘The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805’, which now hangs in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I went to see it the other day and had fun spotting the attention to detail shown by the Carry On team when restaging it. The movie was originally going to be a self-contained project called Up the Armada, but when the BBFC objected to the innuendo title the producers brought it under the Carry On banner.

Funniest moment: Arriving in Plymouth, Poop-Decker hires a sedan chair to take him to his ship. However, when the two guys lift it up, it has no bottom – so Poop-Decker has to run along, Flintstones-style.

The Big 10: For the first time, Kenneth Connor is missing from a Carry On movie. He was busy in the West End, so the final 100-per-cent appearance record has now gone.

* Jim Dale (2) cameos as one of the sedan carriers.

* Charles Hawtrey (7) plays Walter Sweetly, a drunken cesspit cleaner who gets press-ganged into the crew.

* Kenneth Williams (7) is scaredy-cat Captain Fearless, who we first see vomiting over the side.

Notable others:

* Anton Rodgers is in the opening scene as HMS Victory’s captain, Thomas Hardy. When Horatio asks for his kiss, Hardy says, “Are you mad? What will they say at the Admiralty?!”

* Bernard Cribbins is excellent value as the movie’s lead, Albert Poop-Decker. He’s promoted at the start of the story, to midshipman, and gets a romantic subplot.

* Juliet Mills plays Sally, a prostitute from the Dirty Dicks brothel in Plymouth. She seduces Albert, then knocks him out, steals his uniform, and poses as him on board HMS Venus because she wants to get to Spain to find her sweetheart. Mills got the role after Liz Fraser – who’d been in the previous three movies – turned it down.

* Peter Gilmore plays a pirate captain, who turns out to be Sally’s old flame Roger the lodger.

Top totty: Juliet Mills has the only female role of any note.

Kenneth Williams says: “Went to see Carry On Jack. It was a lousy, badly made film. I was astonished at the excellence of Charlie Hawtrey. He was superb. So was Cribbins – the best droll I’ve seen in years. But really good. The rest awful. Including me.” – Friday 28 February 1964 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p230)

“Went in to see Louie [his mother] and we watched Carry On Jack. It is amazing how well these early Carry Ons stand up! At one or two moments I was v. good indeed & talk about economy! I get words out quicker than anyone else on the screen! Self-indulgence in acting is totally alien to me.” – Wednesday 23 October 1974 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p482)

“We saw Carry On Jack and my incisive performance was hardly in accord with the dithering idiot I was supposed to portray.” – Saturday 26 March 1983 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p673)

Review: This is the second Carry On in colour – coincidentally like the first it’s set at sea. More significantly, it’s the first period movie in the series (we’ll get 11 more historical Carry Ons). It’s often quite silly, and feels like a panto at times with a woman masquerading as a man being the central thrust of the story. Charles Hawtrey even delivers a gag direct to camera at one point. But it looks fantastic, with some excellent and elaborate sets of both Plymouth and various sailing ships.

Seven planks out of 10

Carry On Cabby (1963)

Frustrated with her workaholic cabby husband, Peggy Hawkins forms her own rival company, Glamcabs, which is staffed by women drivers…

What’s it spoofing? The battle of the sexes. There are also hints of trade-union satire. The movie is an adaptation of stage play Call Me a Cab.

Funniest moment: Knowing they’re being listened in on by the men, the Glamcabs girls send out a fake call. When the Speedee Cabs driver knocks on the front door of 20 Chester Road, it falls away to reveal a field rather than a house behind it.

The Big 10: Kenneth Williams misses a Carry On for the first time.

* Sid James (4) is Charlie Hawkins, the cheeky and on-the-make owner of Speedee Cabs. He does genuinely love his wife, though, and there’s no sign of lechery.

* Hattie Jacques (6) is very good as Charlie’s wife, Peggy, who despite her naivety at times builds up a successful company in just a few weeks.

* Kenneth Connor (7) does some flirting and a scene or two of cross-dressing as Ted Watson, Speedee Cabs’ site manager.

* Charles Hawtrey (6) isn’t in the film a huge amount as accident-prone driver Terry Tankard (aka Pint-Pot). He’d missed the last movie after his request for top billing was laughed out of the production office, but peace had now been made.

* Jim Dale (1) has a fun cameo as the husband of a woman in labour.

Notable others:

* Bill Owen crops up again, as driver Smiley.

* Liz Fraser appears in a third Carry On running. She plays Sally, who works in the drivers’ café and acts as a mole for the rival firm.

* Amanda Barrie plays one of the Glamcabs drivers. Fenella Fielding turned the role down, arguing that the character was defined by her bust.

* Peter Gilmore – in the first of 11 usually minor Carry On appearances – plays the crook at the end who holds up Peggy’s taxi.

Top totty: Amanda Barrie’s very pretty.

Kenneth Williams says: “Read script of the Peter Rodgers film Call Me a Cab [this film’s original title] and hated it. Wrote and said I didn’t want to do it.” – Friday 1 February 1963 (The Kenneth Williams Diaries, p207)

“I haven’t seen [Carry On Cabby], but I have heard it was lousy. They made it originally with a script called ‘Call Me a Cab’. That’s why I wasn’t in it. I read it and thought that it wouldn’t work UNLESS it were done as a Carry On and that it needed script alterations. They offered me the part which they eventually gave to Charlie Hawtrey. Anyway they made it, and it went out on release and did very bad business indeed. So they withdrew it, and re-issued it, under the new title ‘Carry On Cabbie’ and it cleaned up! They made a lot of money out of it.” – Kenneth Williams to Andrew Hathaway, 12 February 1972 (The Kenneth Williams Letters, p156)

Note: IMDB says the part intended for Williams was actually given to Norman Chappell, while it appears that the change of title was made during production.

Review: Back to black-and-white. Maybe it was for budgetary reasons, but it’s apt. This has traces of kitchen-sink drama, and actually feels more like an Ealing Comedy than a Carry On. There was a new writer, Talbot Rothwell, and he brings a new sophistication. There’s actually a feature-length plot, rather than a collection of comic incidents, as well as some nice character moments. It may have dated – especially when it comes to gender politics – but it’s entertaining stuff.

Eight headlamps out of 10