Displaying items by tag: Bill Owen

CARRY ON REGARDLESS

UK, 1961, 90 minutes, Black-and-white.

Sidney James, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Bill Owen, Liz Fraser, Terrence Longdon, Hattie Jacques, Esma Cannon, Sidney Tafler, Terrence Alexander, Stanley Unwin, Joan Hickson, Fenella Fielding, David Lodge.

Directed by Gerald Thomas.

The fifth film in the series, by now getting underway, and this film having most of the cast from the early films.

The screenplay was written by Norman Hudis who wrote the early screenplays before the transition to Talbot Rothwell who wrote most of the subsequent Carry on films. This one is very straightforward. Sidney James and Esma Cannon run the Helping Hand agency, ready to help out in any emergency. Meanwhile, at the labour exchange, there are a whole lot of characters looking for jobs and who descend on the agency – at one stage, in a scene at the agency, nine of the popular members of the cast are all assembled in the one room.

There is no plot as such. Rather, the film is a succession of farcical episodes, slapstick comedy, each of the new members of the agency going out on jobs and generally mucking them up. And, for a variation, in the last part of the film they go to a mixup of addresses, again with some disastrous results. And finally, their gobbledygook-speaking landlord, Stanley Unwin, interpreted by Kenneth Williams’ character who speaks 16 languages! indicates that he wants the premises renovated. Needless to say, they all help but create disasters, only to find that with all the mess that they have made, it will be all right because the landlord has decided to demolish the building.

Not so much innuendo in this particular version – though, Liz Fraser does offer an opportunity for some sex comedy. And, it is interesting to see Sid James in a fairly straightforward role. And, it is a pleasure to see most of the members of the staff as well as a number of supporting British character actors who appeared in a number of films in the series.

CARRY ON NURSE

UK, 1959, 86 minutes, Black-and-white.

Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims, Wilfrid Hyde White, Shirley Eaton, Terrence Longden, Bill Owen, Leslie Phillips, Susan Stephen, Susan Beaumont, Ann Firbank, Joan Hickson, Michael Medwin, Rosalind Knight, Norman Rossington, Jill Ireland, June Whitfield, Ed Devereaux, Susan Shaw, Irene Handl.

Directed by Gerald Thomas.

In retrospect, very much a film of its time, British comedy in the late 1950s, beginning the transition to explicit comedy, still a lot of innuendo but also a great number of ogling male characters.

This is the second of the Carry on series, beginning with Carry on Sergeant. Sid James, a staple of so many of the later films, had not yet joined the cast. However, a great number of the continuing cast appear here, most of the men spending their time as patients in the hospital ward. The women are nurses or visiting their husbands and boyfriends.

Hattie Jacques begins her several appearances as matron, Joan Hickson as a rather strict numbers (anticipating Miss Marple), Shirley Eaton, five years before Goldfinger, leads the nursing staff, and Joan Sims, the most regular of Carry on characters appears for the first time. There are some guest appearances by Wilfrid Hyde White and Michael Medwin. And there are some amusing cameos by various British character actors including Bill Owen, a myopic Rosalind Knight, Irene Handl and an early appearance by Jill Ireland.

While Kenneth Williams is more subdued, less facial idiosyncrasies, he plays the superior patient, interested in studying, until, at the end, the men in the ward, with drink and laughing gas, trying to remove a bunion on Leslie Phillips‘ foot, Kenneth Williams in charge of surgery. Kenneth Connor, always plays quite a different role in each film and here he is a boxer.

A lot of the verbal humour, a lot of expected hospitals shenanigans in the ward, innuendo, the 1950s British male gaze – and seeming very much more slight and innocent the later developments in the Carry on series.

CARRY ON SERGEANT

UK, 1958, 84 minutes, Black-and-white.

William Hartnell, Shirley Eaton, Bob Monkhouse, Eric Barker, Dora Bryan, Bill Owen, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Terrence Longden, Norman Rossington, Hattie Jacques, Terry Scott, Ed Devereaux.

Directed by Gerald Thomas.

The first of the Carry on films which were to continue into the 60s and 70s, all of them directed by Gerald Thomas. This film was typical enough of the comedy of the 1950s, a focus on the military, a group of national service for 10 weeks training, a motley and comical group, as well as a focus on the sergeant who wants to win an award for the best company, his corporal assistant and the commanding officer. Very much focus on the male characters.

However, Shirley Eaton, some years before Goldfinger, is the just married wife of one of the recruits, Bob Monkhouse, and Dora Bryan does her usual comic thing as a rather flighty cook.

In many ways, this is a straightforward British comedy, a basis for the future Carry on films, but very different from the jokey, sometimes a leering style of the subsequent films. (Comparison can be made with Operation Bullshine of 1959, the army, much more in the vein of the later Carry on films.)

Which means that this film is enjoyable for audiences of British comedy of the 1950s.

Interestingly, in view of the later Carry on films, the first list of cast seen in the opening credits highlights stars who were not regulars in most of the Carry on films (William Hartnell as the sergeant having top billing, Eric Barker, in some of the films, as the commander and the later top-rated billing of Bob Monkhouse). Then, the next list has the regulars who are there right from the beginning, Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, then Hattie Jacques and even a glimpse at the beginning of Terry Scott, conversing with Ed Devereaux.

Kenneth Connor is an extreme hypochondriac, Hattie Jacques the doctor, Charles Hawtrey as usual, but enjoyable to see Kenneth Williams as an intellectual soldier, helping others, but his usual speaking style.

No Sid James until the third Carry on film. No Joan Sims, but she appeared in the next one.

For fans of the Carry on series, instructive and perhaps surprisingly enjoyable, especially with its reticence, reminding us how the series began.