bkoganbing The Carry On gang had one of their best outings in Carry On Regardless, the story of an employment agency run by Sid James where they handle temporary and unique job situations. The nature of the film with the various Carry On troupe members sent on assignment is perfect exhibiting the comedy styles of all the regulars.Such a structure tends to be episodic but in this case hilarious. During the course of the film we see Kenneth Williams get hired as a pet walker and the pet turns out to be a chimpanzee. Great scene when they end up at the London Zoo with Williams and his charge at tea time with his peers. There's also Joan Sims hired to help out at a wine tasting party by Howard Marion Crawford and getting absolutely polluted. And we can't forget Charles Hawtrey hired as a boxing ring second stepping into the ring and taking over when his fighter can't perform. Each skit fills the comic style of the performer perfectly.A really marvelous comedy from Great Britain courtesy of the ever ready Carry On troupe this time at the Helping Hands Employment Agency.

parcdelagrange The Carry on genre of films was in the late fifties, sixties and early seventies a British institution. I have a special soft spot for Carry on Regardless, as the exterior scenes of the Employment Exchange were filmed at Yiewsley Town Hall (Middlesex), just a couple or so miles up the road from Pinewood Studios, and more importantly for me just a few hundred yards from my school. Myself and several of my class mates bunked off school to watch the shooting, and although we were not allowed to get anywhere near the actors, the film crew let us watch from across the road, which was very exciting for an eleven year old. We got caned the next day for bunking off school, but in hindsight it was worth it. Apart from my personal bias, I do think that Regardless was one of the funnier Carry On's, it had moved on from the rather twee Carry On Sergeant, rather silly Carry On Teacher, and showed the beginnings of saucy postcard humour which were to become the films trademark. Sadly, the Carry On films lost their way in the mid 70's, Carry on England being painful to watch and Carry on Emmanuel being more a porn film than a classic British comedy.

MARIO GAUCI For their fifth venture, the usual "Carry On" suspects (Sidney James, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey. Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques) are joined by other irregular members (Fenella Fielding, Liz Fraser, Esma Cannon, Terence Longdon, Bill Owen, David Lodge and Norman Rossington) and some surprising cameos (Stanley Unwin, Jerry Desmonde, Kynaston Reeves, Howard Marion Crawford and Patrick Cargill) in a frequently hilarious but ultimately patchy and disjointed romp.James' Bert Handy heads "Helping Hands", a well-meaning but hopelessly incompetent firm providing any services the customer may require: and, so it is that James is asked by an eccentric millionaire to take his place in the queue at a hospital's waiting room and is consequently mistaken for him and waited on by the matron (Jacques, naturally); Connor is in top form here: ostensibly hired as a babysitter, he finds himself acting as Fielding's lover to arouse her neglectful husband, being a librarian driven to hysterics when attempting to observe a public library's rule of silence, getting himself all wet when, completely misunderstanding a client's request, he engages in some Hitchcockian espionage aboard a train full of sinister passengers, getting engulfed by the "Bed of the Century" when attending an Ideal Home exhibition and, best of all perhaps, going "cold turkey" after his sixth attempt to stop smoking; Sims also has a memorable bit when she ends up drunk at a wine-tasting event and makes a shambles of the place to the chagrin of organizer Crawford; Hawtrey goes into the ring against a massive opponent when, acting as his second, he inadvertently injures the challenger!; Williams enjoys a tea party with a group of chimps at the zoo, etc.The finale shows Cannon's infallible filing system going bonkers with each member of the group being sent out on the wrong assignment and, afterwards, the whole gang join forces in demolishing a dilapidated building…even if their original task was merely to clean it up a bit! In a notable appearance, celebrated comedian Stanley Unwin speaks his trademark nonsense language and drives the entire crew to distraction during his intermittent visits to their office…before multi-linguist Williams manages to explain that he is their landlord and is about to throw them out! As one can make out, there are several funny bits in this film but it is also evident that its inherently episodic structure (which entails that some of the gang members are given precedence over others) fails to coalesce into a cohesive and completely satisfying whole.

rps-2 The Carry On movies at one time were the very soul of British humour. I used to love them. And I have fond memories of a London stage Review "Carry On London" on one of my first visits there in the sixties. But, alas, the movies, at least this one, have not worn well. I eagerly looked forward to watching this item when it turned up on one of our specialty channels. After all, Sid James is/was a very funny man! But, sad to say, I found it trite, predictable, clichéd,dated,juvenile and not really all that funny. I guess it was right for the times, a product pre-dating IRA bombing campaigns, the common market and the Americanization of English life. But in 2005, unlike some other "oldies", it just doesn't make it.