Displaying items by tag: Carry on Regardless movie

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.