Carry on England

Unable to raise a few laughs, CARRY ON ENGLAND is the swan song of the serie. Even afterwards, CARRY ON EMMANUELLE or/and COLOMBUS made it too painful to live through.

The screenplay is simply non-existent, just a symptom of one. The lead characters are poor. The cinematography is plain Tv-movie like. The routine is based on trousers taken off, shoutings, lovemaking then trousers taken off, shoutings, lovemaking then, oh, I forgot, some breasts quickly shown. Simply NOT FUNNY.

Joan Sims has a ridiculous part and it's real shame, being the only decent actress all around. Judy Geeson is awfully bad, giving the worst performance of her career with Norman J Warren's INSEMINOID. Peter Rogers & Gerald Thomas were incapable of finding a new breath in the Carry On serie : the new actors just don't work together and the screenwriters (they were two!!!) just try to put some rehash of some stuff made years ago and way much better.

I really missed Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor and the whole bunch. They were worth watching any Carry On even though the screenplays were really poor, like in CARRY ON AT YOUR CONVENIENCE. But I guess everything has an end, but this one is really painful to watch. My fast forward button still remember it!

If you want to try something really funny, then get CARRY ON MATRON or CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, these are are true gems. But you can pass that one.

2/10

Set in 1940 in England, this is a story about a particular military outfit made up of men and woman who were particularly inept, lazy and probably a bit oversexed. Sid James, who wasn't supposed to be here anyway, passed away before the film was done. He could have brought some life into this, he was a great comedian. This movie is very shrill, lots of yelling, lots of noise. Does the new general of this company whip these people into shape? Do you care? The jokes are very obvious here, and I was only semi-amused a few times. The movie seems labored, and that is not good for a Carry On film. I would only recommend this film for Carry On completists. Otherwise, there are other films in the series which are infinitely better (examples are Carry On Doctor, Carry On Abroad, Carry On-Don't Lose Your Head etc).

I made the effort to watch it, I felt I should have had something out of the experience, committing an hour and a half of my time to it. what a total and utter disaster of a movie. They should really have finished once they completed Carry on Behind, the last really great movie in the series. A huge shame for Joan Sims, she had the best pedigree coming into it, and she was appallingly served, what a waste of her talent. Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson were a total shambles, neither should have been cast, no timing, no humour, coupled with the pathetic script they were all doomed. The best element had to be Windsor Davies, well suited to the role, the only one in it that got me to crack half a smile

2/10 They should have stopped half way through, too many faces missing, the moment had passed.

There was an urban myth doing the rounds back in the seventies that this film was part-financed by the Beatles' Apple Corps company. If that is the case, then the fab four must have ingested more dodgy chemicals than anyone would have thought possible, because this is as bad as it gets. Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson are to comedy acting what sealions are to light engineering, and every moment they're on screen you'll want to hide behind the furniture. Kenneth Connor has little to do that isn't embarrassing in some way (his impersonation of a Nazi plane has to be one of the most cringe-making moments in the history of cinema) and the few loyal Carry On team members who could be bothered to turn up for this lazy, crude, shambolic outing are thrown away in cameo parts. The only part that raised a smile with me was Diane Langton attempting to operate the steering mechanism on the anti-aircraft gun, only to be thwarted by her protuberant bosom. Then Peter Jones, whose lines are intentionally awful but rendered even worse by his drab playing, completely kills the scene with his comment about "keeping abreast of the situation". One can only dream of what Talbot Rothwell (the screenwriter who bowed out of the series two years before) would have had Sidney James saying about this seaside postcard scenario...

Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! The Carry Ons were really running out of steam here, and all that can be said in favour of this one is that it isn't as bad as the next one, Carry On Emmannuelle. Too many new faces, the few remaining old hands completely wasted, too many actors known from TV appearing here in their TV roles. Too much nudity. The Carry Ons work best when they suggest and joke about sex. This is painful, and should be avoided.