Leofwine_draca
The first of many, many CARRY ON films and one of the best in terms of production values, CARRY ON SERGEANT follows the pranks and pitfalls of a group of raw soldiers being put through their paces by a retiring officer. For anyone who knows this genre, the story writes itself from there.Although this film has an excellent cast - one of the best of the entire series - and a sheen of quality that the later films were sadly lacking, it's fair to say that it isn't one of the funniest. Much of the character humour is subtle and there are few laugh-out-loud moments, although there are highlights as always. One of these is Kenneth Connor, who, although saddled with an irritating character, makes the best of things with his squeaky-voiced antics.William Hartnell and Bob Monkhouse both make one-off appearances in this series and submit decent work, although you do feel that they're in another film entirely. Kenneth Williams gets a chance to show off his acting chops in a non-hammy turn while Charles Hawtrey bags more of the limelight than usual (and the film's better for it). With the fire extinguisher and training ground pratfalls this is often a gently amusing escapade, albeit one you won't remember much about afterwards.
petersnyati
This movie proves once again that the English have a devastatingly sharp wit combined with great slapstick humor. It also proved to this old American that despite differences of accents and uniforms that early life in the Army was pretty much the same in both Her Majesty's service and in the US Army in the 1950s. This is my first time viewing of what I gather is a classic series in Great Britain of "Carry On" movies and I came to it quite late -and intend to look for later movies in the series. I urge Americans of any age to give themselves a treat and watch this movie.(BTW,everyone in this movie is just great in their roles -watch and see what I mean. Fans of James Bond movies also get to see Shirley Eaton (remember "Goldfinger" and the beautiful girl coated in gold?)My vote is a ringing 10.
JoshuaKaitlyn2008
Not the best of the bunch but a reasonable beginning, this first entry into the famous series is not as filled with the innuendo as are some of the later ones, in fact there are only a couple of references to one soldiers lack of a proper wedding night. Only about four of the series regulars make an appearance with Charles Hawtry playing the same character, albeit with different names, as he did in all the carry on's. Hattie Jacques plays an army doctor, a role that will become Matron in a least two other carry on movies including the next one Carry On Nurse. Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor are the other two regulars. Also appearing is Shirley Eaton who will also join Jacques in the next movie.
lfisher0264
One of the early batch of black and white Carry Ons which were so much better than the later, smuttier ones which seem to have become THE carry-ons. If you like this, you'll like Nurse, Cabby, Spying and Regardless. So what happened to British humour? Well, back then we had something called "censorship", and an official censor who went through the scripts crossing out anything risqué. This meant that writers and comedians had to be pretty ingenious and somehow the jokes were much funnier as a result. When everything became possible we were reduced to the single entendre. Anyway, back to the plot - I'd forgotten how hilarious Capt. Potts is, with his formulae for everything. Bob Monkhouse is good. I never get Kenneth Connor but he's not too irritating here, perhaps because he has an actual character to play instead of being let loose to gibber at will. Many of the cast were probably in the British army. I know that Private Williams, K. was in the army in Burma so no wonder his drill looks quite professional. He is sending up his own character here - he was a self-educated and highly intelligent man who liked to show off. He's also playing an overbearing middle class character, whereas he was - as his fans knew - a London boy whose Dad was a barber in Kings Cross.
AD
