beresfordjd
I thought I would just give this film a try as I had not seen a Carry on for many years. I now know I was not missing anything. It is a mystery to me why performers who had some real comic talent ever got involved in a series like this. Kenneth Williams was a fantastically versatile actor and was able to handle drama and comedy. Why he lowered himself to continue in this kind of rubbish is puzzling. Ditto most of the other participants. I remember enjoying Carry on Sergeant and Carry on Teacher even Carry on Nurse (or was it doctor) - those were all black and white and fairly funny to a kid as I was at the time. Over the years the quality went down and down until they just became embarrassing to watch. The rot really set in when Barbara Windsor and Sid James joined the team. This particular film is just chronically awful in almost every respect - the performances by the main Carry on team are phoned in and the script is appalling. I am aware that there are people for whom Carry on films are the epitome of sophisticated humour and some people who love them because they are awful. I just cannot stand them.
Tweekums
Having had a hit with 'Carry on Camping', the team cover similar ground here; this time at a caravan park. Kenneth Williams plays Professor Ronald Crump, an archaeologist who is accompanied by Russian expert Professor Anna Vooshka, played by Elke Sommer, when Roman remains are found near the caravan park. Also present at the park are a couple of married men who have told their wives they are going fishing but spend the film trying to chat up the girls next door; a couple accompanied by the woman's mother and her myna bird and another couple with their huge dog. Over the course of the film we get the expected shenanigans; the myna bird keeps saying 'show us your knickers' whenever a girl is near and she naturally thinks it is one of the men, Crump constantly misunderstands Vooshka, thinking she is saying something rude; and the two 'fishermen' fail to get anywhere with the girls
over all a typical late entry to the Carry On series.This isn't the worst entry in the series but it is one of the weaker ones; where once we had gentle humour just about every joke was smutty; that isn't bad in itself but the jokes felt too predictable. The opening scene where Crump accidentally showed a film of a stripper rather than an archaeological dig let us know what to expect early on. The film certainly suffered from not having a full compliment of Carry On veterans; Williams was amusing as Crump and Kenneth Connor wasn't bad as the site owner but Joan Sims was reduced to playing the battleaxe of a mother in law. The story was okay and there were some (in)decent laughs, however the nature of the jokes meant the film probably isn't suitable for younger viewers while many of the jokes will seen puerile to older viewers.
hillsack
I've ticked the spoiler box just in case, but anyone familiar with the 'Carry On' series knows there's never any plot to spoil. If a geriatric Sid James going on a camping holiday to try to 'get off' with his 33-year-old girlfriend in 'Carry On Camping' seemed out of date for 1969, then watch this desperate rehash with your thumb poised above the fast forward button: Swedish stunner Elke Sommer sets off with fellow archaeologist Kenneth Williams (passable, but the same) on a hunt for missing pieces to a naughty Roman mosaic buried underneath a caravan site in the summer season. Flaccid 'jokes', laboured slapstick and bad editing abound with a foul-mouthed flyaway mynah bird, a runaway Irish wolfhound, midnight pratfalls in nightdresses and pyjamas, and the inevitable shower stall scenes.As with Hammer's formula-into-film, how could any of them, scriptwriter, crew, players or audience, not have realized that it was all old hat, so very, very flogged to death and utterly and irrevocably over? Offensive not just to all women everywhere, but to every sentient creature in the universe, this arrant nonsense will serve its best ever purpose by keeping a date with the recycling bin.
m_pratt
This film is a good film!. Not as good as Dick but a good film. It is a return to the modern world as the last film was set in 1750 we are now back into the 1970s..Any way the film is based around a caravan site there is a good combination of actors and characters.Bernard Bresslaw is great as Arthur Upmore , Patsy Rowlands is also very good as his wife. Windsor Davies and Jack Douglas are the Sid and Bernie characters as in carry on camping.Joan Sims is a little weak in this carry on not as good as in Dick.Elke Sommer is great as Anna Vooskha as is Kenneth Williams as professor Roland crump. Kenneth Connor is just as funny as ever. Peter Butterworth is the Mr fiddler type character as in Camping. Its a nice return for Liz Frazer who was last seen back in 1963 in Cabby? i think. Ian lavender is very good as the long suffering dog owner his wife Norma Baxter who loves her dog who keeps going into the Upmores tent. Carol and Sandra the birds who Jack and Windsor are after. A talking Mynah bird escapes and creates havoc all over the campsite. Overall a great carry on after this things took a turn for the worst and by 1976 the carry on series was dead and buried.As mentioned the plot is very similar to carry on camping with Carol and Sandra being the Babs and Fanny characters. Most of the last few where remakes of earlier films. Behind = Camping,the film has no real plot just sketches as in loving and Regardless. England is another version of carry on Seargeant , Colombus= Jack.Most of the locations in this film where used in earlier film and makes you pine for Sid and Babs. Barbara Windsor would have been good in this film.Overall 10/10
AD
