Your best and worst 5 Carry On films Page 4

Another late convert to Cabby, when I finally bothered to watch it all I thought it was superb and quite different to what I thought it was. Very well made so it would be in my revised top 5 best knocking out Jack which I placed too high, Cowboy is undeniably well filmed. Spying is another that was different to what I remembered and is well made too. It's probably worth noting that it's Babs' debut and after this one the series became a lot more saucy, I wonder why, eh! Screaming has to get a mention for the creepy Victorian atmosphere it creates and Don't Lose Your Head for the costumes alone.

My favourites to watch are:
Camping
Cleo
Screaming
Up The Khyber
Matron
Abroad
Cabby
Loving
At Your Convenience
Behind - great Jack Douglas and Windsor Davies pairing

I always feel that a Carry On has GOT to include all three of Charles Hawtrey, Sid James & Kenneth Williams. If it can also include Hattie Jacques that's a bonus, while the addition of Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor, Jim Dale and/or Peter Butterworth can be no bad thing.

On that basis I'd list the top 5 as:

1. Regardless (with the bonus of appearances by Stanley Unwin & Esma Cannon)
2. Cowboy (although no Hattie, does have Joan Sims, Jim Dale AND Peter Butterworth)
3. Camping
And then, in no particular order:
Again Doctor
Matron

They had more or less come to the end of their useful life by the time we got to Behind & England, That's Carry On was just old clips cobbled together and I've never really regarded Emmannuelle and, certainly, Columbus as genuine Carry Ons.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 23rd February 2018, 9:51 AM

1. Regardless (with the bonus of appearances by Stanley Unwin & Esma Cannon)

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Bold!

I don't enjoy any of the Barbara Windsor films.
Apart from Spying, she wasn't too awful in that.

Quote: Bill Poster @ 26th February 2018, 1:11 AM

I don't enjoy any of the Barbara Windsor films.
Apart from Spying, she wasn't too awful in that.

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I'd like to be upfront and raise a couple of points in her favour.

The first cos it wasn't really Carry on!
The worst I've seen is probably Carry on Britain. Just crude and tacky with none of the sauce and cheekiness.

I meant Carry On England - couldn't even remember the name, that's how good it was.

Quote: David Carmon @ 1st May 2012, 11:39 PM

I think it's different to all of them, it's got a different tone to it.

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The first Carry On films were quite different to the horrible franchising they degraded into - much wittier and sharper. Carry On Sergeant isn't even a C O movie at all.
And how could I forget 'Columbus'? Take a format that went out of date 20 years ago and even then it was dodgy, and foist it onto a bunch of newbies who had a diametrically opposed sense of humour. What could possibly go wrong?

The good
Cowboy-works as a non Carry On comedy
Convenience-low brow fun
Cleo-historically accurate(!)
Khyber-fun fun fun
Abroad-the last good un

The bad
Dick-boring
Emmannuelle-grubby
Columbus-a mistake
England-words fail
Again Doctor-not bad, just poorly

Difficult one. My five favourites are Camping, Matron, At Your Convenience, Doctor and I'm struggling with the the next one, maybe Regardless.

Worst five are England, Emmannuelle, Khyber (never liked it). Even Emmannuelle I watch occasionally though and still enjoy it in parts. I can't judge the other two least favourites, possibly Jack and Columbus, although Columbus as a stand alone film is quite enjoyable.

Honestly, they are all pretty bad. Just don't get the humor at all, and I'm pretty good about British humor.

Carry On Cowboy, Emmannuelle, and Girls were probably the bottom of the lot, even though I hate adding on Girls because I love Sid James and Robin Askwith, but even they weren't enough to save it.

I reckon it's probably necessary to be British to really enjoy them as much of the enjoyment is from knowing what British life was like and Brits' particular obsessions and coarse sense of humour. Factors non Brits may not get are the drab routine of post war life for most, the drabness of the weather, the food, that made places like Blackpool and Brighton seem like an exotic paradise. Much of the humour employed is stoical British self deprecation, laughing at the late buses and trains, stale sandwiches and rubbish motor cars years after fending off the vaunted Nazis with the excellence of German manufacturing behind them.

I love most of them. It's hard to pick a top 5 as I love them lots and the characters and plots are fun and interesting. If I'd to choose a top 5 best and worst

Best 5
Carry On Abroad
Carry On At Your Convenience
Carry On Doctor
Carry On Nurse
Carry On Loving

These are the best 5 because I love the acting. Characters and plots are brilliant.

Worst 5
Carry On Jack
Carry On Dick
Carry On Emmanuelle
Carry On Up The Khyber
Carry On England

I hate these 5. Boring not interesting and don't like the characters

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 7th October 2018, 10:44 AM

I reckon it's probably necessary to be British to really enjoy them...

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No. I force the Carry On films (not the final few dire ones) on people of all nationalities (taking care to avoid those who have just attended the annual Lars von Trier and Fellini festivals), and they invariably go down well. Don't need to be a Brit who grew up in a drab little council house and endured dismal food/weather to really enjoy such simple fare. Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques and Bernard Bresslaw in a Talbot Rothwell script are the key ingredients -- though some of those TV and Christmas specials were pretty rotten.

Oooh, matronnnnnnn! That was my Kenneth Williams impression. It's good, isn't it?