"I only ask, because your butler told us you were dead!"
Since I did find quite a few of the films a while back, here are the rest of my waffly reviews. (And before people wonder why I've got the little sanity I have left to me, these were watched over the last 3 or so weeks, not just today or something!)
New friends, well, you remember I said I was slightly mad... Here be proof.
So:
Carry On Screaming.
Very, very good. And I know exactly why I hated it as a child. The trauma blocked from my mind came back as soon as I saw the vats. It's very funny to think I was so horrified by the ending. I didn't do horror. Mind you, if you have too much imagination, what happens is actually the same as the oh-so-shocking death in Spooks 1.2. (And YouTube has solved for me the worrying mystery of why I was so attached to Kenneth Williams as a child - it wasn't Willo' the Wisp; it wasn't even Galloping Galaxies, it was Jackanory - James and the Giant Peach. I didn't really like Jackanory because I liked to read to myself, but that one I loved. Of course. KW would read fast enough to keep me happy. This is a relief. I knew children's TV brainwashing was to blame somewhere.) Oh, where was I? Dan Dan the Lavatory Man - still the best bit. (Oh, aside from maybe this- see especially 3.50 onwards - brilliant!
Carry On Cleo
It makes The Romans look earnest and historically accurate. And I like the completely unsubtle way of saying that Caesar and Mark Antony were friends every time they appear together: "It's Mark Antony - he's my friend." "Julie!" "Tony!" (Plus MA and Agrippa on killing Caesar: Agrippa: "I wish you hadn't asked me to do it."/ MA: "Why not?"/ Agrippa: "I'm his cousin."/ Mark Antony: "Well, I can't do it, can I? I'm his friend.") And the oh so backward Britons. (With Boudicca, stone age settlements, dinosaurs, Hengist Horsa and Ethelred the Unready all in a jumble. Who's been reading 1066 And All That? And Ian and Barbara so should have got sold by Marcus and Spencius.)
Carry On Cruising
I was going to say last of the b&w era, but it's in colour. Still is though. Norman Hudis's last script (?) and he seems to have run out of steam. (There seems to be a missing subplot - Liz Fraser gets oddly sidelined). Mind you, anything that lets a smug Kenneth Williams rescue a trembling Sid James from an attractive female ("Who did you say was scared of who?") is amusing in itself. And Kenneth Connor still doing his shy guy routine: "I shall tell her - I'm a simple, plain man, with simple plain feelings... I'm pimply! No...")
Carry On Don't Lose Your Head
Funniest bit: Sid James, to Jim Dale and dancing partner: "Mind if I cut in?"
Jim Dale: "If you must."
They waltz off together. :-D
But well worth £1 just to see Charles Hawtrey sword-fighting as the Duc de Pomme Frites. I like the asides to camera. I wonder if it was a particular Scarlet Pimpernel film or show they were parodying? And the locket with his mother's teeth is nicely daft.
Carry on Behind
All right, so one of the last ones I was supposedly not watching, but my sister and I used to like this one. We adopted Elke Sommers as a heroine and loved the tomato sauce gag. It is trying too hard to go too far, but amusingly this effort lasts seriously for a few minutes before it's back to caravans, a big dog, a talking Mynah bird and people discovering they're better off with their spouses. Plus, the tomato sauce / blood routine does lead to this little exchange at the hospital:
Prf. Crump: What are you, a vampire? (As the Doctor tastes the 'blood').
Doctor: It's tomato sauce.
Crump: Tomato sauce??!!
Doctor: Well, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup, what's the difference?
Nurse: 2p per bottle.
And I remembered there being a sweet twist to the Joan Sims and Peter Butterworth characters, but it's a lovely scene and also builds on Carry On expectations and subverts them. (Joan Sims is relegated to not only being a nagging wife, but a nagging mother-in-law and Peter Butterworth is doing his usual turn of wandering around the edges of the film as the tramp-like, money-grasping shifty odd-job man.) JS at one points explains that she left her husband because he was too coarse and scruffy but when they meet we find he's been scrimping and saving and living like this to save up and be worthy to take her back. I'll try and do the exchange, because you don't really want to have to watch the film (though Elke Sommers did indeed manage to redeem a tacky, tacky part and it's even got a long-haired be-flared Sam Kelly, which pleased me lots).
PB: Look! (Showing her his bank book)
JS: £20,000! I don't believe it!
PB: They won't write it in if you don't put it in.
JS: But how?
PB: I scrimped and saved for ten years. And then last year I won the football pools.
JS: How much?
PB: Nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty pounds.
And later, when a lot of holes (suspiciously neatly dug holes, I'd add!) appear, catapault her into his arms. JS: What just happened?
PB: (joyfully, finally getting the girl after 14 or so Carry on films): Who cares?
Daft, but because they're both first and foremost good actors, it really comes across with depth.
Carry On Abroad
This one's bizarre, but it has a good beginning and the bit with the telephones is priceless - the hotel is not yet finished and everyone rings Peter Butterworth's Pepe to complain. He gives up and patches them into each other and it's very funny. By and large I'd say, it's most worth seeing if you like Peter Butterworth as this one's his film. He gets to pretend to be several different hotel staff, do the phones thing and spend about 20 minutes trying to single-handledly stop the hotel from falling down while everyone else is drunk. And he's very, very good at that sort of thing.