Following hot on the trail of Carry On Constable (1959), Peter Rogers
and Gerald Thomas came up with a slightly less ambitious comedy with
Carry On Regardless. There is really no strong backbone of a plot in
this one with it centering around The Helping Hands Agency. The Agency
takes on six unemployed men and women and one of the clerks at the
labour exchange who decides to join them in a quest for a new, more
exciting job. They each find themselves plunged into a very odd, diverse
range of assigments, which range from taking a chimp out for the day,
trying to stay sober at a wine tasting and demonstrating new pieces of
equipment at the Ideal home Exhibition. Of course being a Carry on film,
everything they put their hands to turns horribly wrong! As there is
just basically a series of sketches, the film overly feels disjointed
and there is a feeling of something missing that you can't quite put
your finger on. This is, however, nothing to do with the cast who are
all on top form and are all clearly having a ball. The cast of regulars
include Sid James, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie
Jaques (yet again in the role of Matron) and the bumbling ecccentric,
Kenneth Connor. Certainly some laughs to be had and some sequences are
consistently amusing but the film is patchy and at times shows signs of
not quite knowing where its going. If you're a big carry on fan then its
still worth a look.
Carry On Cruising (1962) saw the series
transferred into colour but the one thing missing from this is the large
number of regulars absent from it - theres no Charles Hawtrey, Joan
Sims or Hattie Jaques. Yet surprisingly this does emerge as an
enjoyable, entertaining entry in the long-running series. The action of
course is set aboard a Mediterranean cruise liner (well actually it was
all filmed at PineWood Studios) with the inept and typically
incompentent crew under the strict command of the serious and uptight
Captain Crowther, who is played marvelously by Sid James. Things all
come to a climax when the crew plan a surprise party for the captain who
is celebrating his tenth year at sea. This was Norman Hudis's last
script for the series, which is certainly on top form throughout.
Amongst the cast include Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor (in a fairly
typical role), Dilys Laye (taking the role that was origanally written
for Joan Sims), Liz Frazer, Lance Percival as a hopelessly sea-sick chef
and loveable eccentric Esma Cannon.
Both of these early entries
in the Carry On series are defintley worth a look. By no means are they
amongst the best but certainly are entertaining.