Carry On Regardless/Carry On Cruising

Early Carry On's

Following hot on the trail of Carry On Constable (1959), Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas came up with a slightly less ambitious comedy with Carry On Regardless. There is really no strong backbone of a plot in this one with it centering around The Helping Hands Agency. The Agency takes on six unemployed men and women and one of the clerks at the labour exchange who decides to join them in a quest for a new, more exciting job. They each find themselves plunged into a very odd, diverse range of assigments, which range from taking a chimp out for the day, trying to stay sober at a wine tasting and demonstrating new pieces of equipment at the Ideal home Exhibition. Of course being a Carry on film, everything they put their hands to turns horribly wrong! As there is just basically a series of sketches, the film overly feels disjointed and there is a feeling of something missing that you can't quite put your finger on. This is, however, nothing to do with the cast who are all on top form and are all clearly having a ball. The cast of regulars include Sid James, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jaques (yet again in the role of Matron) and the bumbling ecccentric, Kenneth Connor. Certainly some laughs to be had and some sequences are consistently amusing but the film is patchy and at times shows signs of not quite knowing where its going. If you're a big carry on fan then its still worth a look.

Carry On Cruising (1962) saw the series transferred into colour but the one thing missing from this is the large number of regulars absent from it - theres no Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims or Hattie Jaques. Yet surprisingly this does emerge as an enjoyable, entertaining entry in the long-running series. The action of course is set aboard a Mediterranean cruise liner (well actually it was all filmed at PineWood Studios) with the inept and typically incompentent crew under the strict command of the serious and uptight Captain Crowther, who is played marvelously by Sid James. Things all come to a climax when the crew plan a surprise party for the captain who is celebrating his tenth year at sea. This was Norman Hudis's last script for the series, which is certainly on top form throughout. Amongst the cast include Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor (in a fairly typical role), Dilys Laye (taking the role that was origanally written for Joan Sims), Liz Frazer, Lance Percival as a hopelessly sea-sick chef and loveable eccentric Esma Cannon.

Both of these early entries in the Carry On series are defintley worth a look. By no means are they amongst the best but certainly are entertaining. November 2, 2002

More reviews at Amazon.com ...