You know when you sleep, I think that you look like you're dead?
Tonight ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I had to hit pause on our movie and laugh so hard that the Roku remote—whose microphone we had duct-taped over to keep it from hearing us—thought we were trying to give it instructions because we were watching Carry On Screaming! (1966) and the electrically regenerated mad scientist played by Kenneth Williams had just enunciated the name of the mummified pharaoh in his luridly purple-lit drawing room, "the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, you know—King Rubatiti." We missed half the scene that followed. It wasn't even the caliber of the double-entendre. It's not a bad one, even by the similarly outrageous standards of Mel Brooks or Monty Python, but I'm pretty sure that a sixth-grader hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce at least half of a Carry On script. It was the irreproducible effect of Williams' diction, archly drawing out every cut-glass syllable so that for approximately one zeptosecond it sounded like a perfectly reasonable thing for an Edwardian scientist to brag about to his guests before the audience's brain caught up to the bold-faced lowbrow of the joke and exploded. The spirited contributions of the actor's nostrils are also not to be underestimated. I can find no evidence that Williams was ever involved in a production of The Mikado and it saddens me: he was born for Pooh-Bah's line about being born sneering. I am also sorry that he and Fenella Fielding never seem to have been paired in another Carry On. Their brother-sister act, him such a high-strung live wire he's in danger of literally running down, her vampirically smoldering to the point of actual combustion, is the best I've seen in the old dark house genre since Riff Raff and Magenta.
spatch and I had to hit pause on our movie and laugh so hard that the Roku remote—whose microphone we had duct-taped over to keep it from hearing us—thought we were trying to give it instructions because we were watching Carry On Screaming! (1966) and the electrically regenerated mad scientist played by Kenneth Williams had just enunciated the name of the mummified pharaoh in his luridly purple-lit drawing room, "the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, you know—King Rubatiti." We missed half the scene that followed. It wasn't even the caliber of the double-entendre. It's not a bad one, even by the similarly outrageous standards of Mel Brooks or Monty Python, but I'm pretty sure that a sixth-grader hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce at least half of a Carry On script. It was the irreproducible effect of Williams' diction, archly drawing out every cut-glass syllable so that for approximately one zeptosecond it sounded like a perfectly reasonable thing for an Edwardian scientist to brag about to his guests before the audience's brain caught up to the bold-faced lowbrow of the joke and exploded. The spirited contributions of the actor's nostrils are also not to be underestimated. I can find no evidence that Williams was ever involved in a production of The Mikado and it saddens me: he was born for Pooh-Bah's line about being born sneering. I am also sorry that he and Fenella Fielding never seem to have been paired in another Carry On. Their brother-sister act, him such a high-strung live wire he's in danger of literally running down, her vampirically smoldering to the point of actual combustion, is the best I've seen in the old dark house genre since Riff Raff and Magenta.
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Now there was a true genius!
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He's a treasure. I actually discovered him with Round the Horne.
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We have a 12" album of the songs which still makes me laugh uncontrollably, although I suspect you need to be a folkie to really understand some of the humour.
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Syd's a genius creation, isn't he? I wonder if you can get his songs on CD? To EBay!
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Syd was a Marty Feldman creation which might explain a lot! :o)
How does that sort of comic genius get forgotten?
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No one's forgotten Marty Feldman in this house!
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I'll have to find it! (I could swear Anna Russell had done something similar, too, but it's not turning up on my hard drive.)
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*The spirited contributions of the actor's nostrils are also not to be underestimated.*
Mesmerising, aren't they? Like staring into the barrels of a shotgun.
If you fancy another old dark house comedy, try Frankie Howerd's The House in Nightmare Park. I've not seen it in *cough*ty years, but I certainly loved it as a kid.
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Right now it's a toss-up for me between this one and Carry On Cleo (1964) on account of all the classical jokes (and the permanent aftereffect, in accordance with generations of tradition, of being unable to hear anyone use the word "infamy" without a visitation of camp Caesar's ghost), but we loved it. I wish I'd known about it in time for Halloween.
The scene that fascinated me most was Charles Hawtrey being flushed down a lavatory.
Neither of us saw that coming and then afterward didn't know why not.
Mesmerising, aren't they? Like staring into the barrels of a shotgun.
I suspect him nonetheless of being one of the comedians who are basically good-looking, although you'd never be able to prove it from the things they can make their faces do. He made a remarkably dapper Edwardian mad scientist even with the corpse paint.
If you fancy another old dark house comedy, try Frankie Howerd's The House in Nightmare Park.
I've never heard of that one! But I see it's directed by Peter Sykes who later directed the actual Hammer I just finished watching, so now I feel I have an obligation. Coincidentally,
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As soon as I'd mentioned this the phrase "Dan Dann the lavatory man" came up in my head like a playground chant.
*I suspect him nonetheless of being one of the comedians who are basically good-looking*
Yes, he was handsome - a face perhaps too mobile for its own good. I watched a few clips on YouTube after posting a comment and I'd forgotten the glee with which he plays Dr Watt. And also Fielding's "Do you mind if I smoke?"
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He's just a gem. Plotwise, I think he's a complete red herring, but artistically, I don't care:
"I'm a police detective, and I must warn you that I shall take down anything you say."
"All right—trousers!"
Yes, he was handsome - a face perhaps too mobile for its own good.
No such thing! I admire anyone who can launch their eyebrows into low earth orbit without looking more than usually peeved.
I watched a few clips on YouTube after posting a comment and I'd forgotten the glee with which he plays Dr Watt.
I decided on the spot that if he was schoolfellows with Frankenstein, he must have studied under Dr. Pretorius.
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(Also re. Dan Dann the Lavatory Man being a red herring - Charles Hawtrey was supposed to playing a larger role - I think he and Peter Butterworth should have been reversed? - but he asked for a raise and so got shoved into a cameo. And, of course, being Charles Hawtrey ran away with the film regardless.)
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Yeah, that's Buster Keaton-quality. And that bone structure didn't go anywhere.
but he asked for a raise and so got shoved into a cameo. And, of course, being Charles Hawtrey ran away with the film regardless.
Good for him!
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.......
Ah, the cinema.
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HIGH ART.
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Kenneth Williams was amazing. (I have an unhealthy Carry On fixation, which I try not to talk about too much, but it bubbles back up the moment anyone talks about them, because OMG all their real lives were so much stranger than fiction that there are nearly as many plays about Carry On stars as there are Carry On films.)
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Immensely!
I, of course, did them the other way around, so I'm terribly amused belatedly at how perfectly they nailed the Hammer palette and everything.
We kept exclaiming over it as we watched! The lighting! The set design! The rubbishy mad science in the basement! We were trying to figure out if they had actually repurposed original props outright like Mel Brooks with Young Frankenstein (1974) and finally settled on probably not, but it was pitch-perfect all the same.
And also, Hammer, if the Carry Ons are having a go at you for yr sexism, you really ought to do something about it!
The thing where the narrative point of the heroine is to be in peril is in fact the thing I complained about with the last two Hammer horrors I've seen, yes.
Kenneth Williams was amazing.
I am extremely fond of him. That was probably inevitable from space.
(I have an unhealthy Carry On fixation, which I try not to talk about too much, but it bubbles back up the moment anyone talks about them, because OMG all their real lives were so much stranger than fiction that there are nearly as many plays about Carry On stars as there are Carry On films.)
I'm really not going to try to talk you out of talking about it. The only ones I know much about are Williams and Hawtrey, who I saw first in A Canterbury Tale (1944), actually.
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Hammer shot at Pinewood as well sometimes and the Carry On team had a history of using other films' props and sets if they were lying about so they totally might have done.
Immensely! [personal profile] spatch discovered a cache of Carry On a day or so ago and it was the first one I wanted to watch. I regret nothing.
Which were the other ones? I mean, they are what they are, but there are some from the end of the run that I really would not recommend giving the time of day (the series really did kind of die with Sid James, but the undead corpse went on for a while, because Peter Thomas was like that), and the earlier ones are rather different again, although in a way that I like a lot - but nothing like the Talbot Rothwell 60s parodies.
The thing where the narrative point of the heroine is to be in peril is in fact the thing I complained about with the last two Hammer horrors I've seen, yes.
Every time one of them is doing well, they get knocked unconscious or something. I thought of Screaming a lot. I think, out of the ones I've seen, the most I can say is that Jennifer Daniel does okay in The Reptile, but that's not saying much for the franchise. But I do love that the second Peter Butterworth puts on a skirt to become bait he becomes prey to all the heroine Hammer conventions. XD
I'm really not going to try to talk you out of talking about it. The only ones I know much about are Williams and Hawtrey, who I saw first in A Canterbury Tale (1944), actually.
I watched them a lot growing up and so many of them died - Kenneth Williams is the first celebrity death I remember noticing - so I was aware of the Curse of the Carry Ons, and then I did an A-Level project for media studies on 1950s comedy and realised that, for all their faults, they're actually a damn sight less sexist than most other contemporary comedy stuff, even the respectable 'classics' & I may have nearly all of them on DVD with the commentaries. But that combination of them all being larger than life characters, so often tied together, not really well treated or paid by producer Peter Rogers (who relentlessly rolled the profits back into the films & wouldn't re-use anyone who complained - hence Charles Hawtrey getting 'punished' with a bit-part for asking for a raise in Screaming) and things like Barbara Windsor marrying an East End criminal and taking Kenneth Williams with them on the honeymoon, or Charles Hawtrey dying with his boots on, or the fact that some people really believe that Kenneth Williams murdered his father. It's no wonder people write plays, although I kind of hate all of them because I am not good at watching things where people aren't actually the real people and I know the real ones from other things.
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Excellent. I have not yet seen a sufficient number of Hammer productions to recognize when sets and props are being reused even by the studio themselves, like that one time the inimitable stairwell from Warners' Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, shot in 1941) turned up in George Washington Slept Here (1942) and I was so happy to see it.
Which were the other ones?
At the moment we have Carry On Sergeant (1958), Carry On Nurse (1959), Carry On Constable (1960), Carry On Regardless (1961), Carry On Cruising (1962), Carry On Cabby (1963), Carry On Spying (1964), Carry On Cowboy (1965), and Carry On Dick (1974), so a distinct bias toward toward the early years; I figure we'll just go chronologically from here unless you tell me there's good reason not to. I've been curious about Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) for years, but so far it's no go. I'd love to rewatch Carry On Cleo (1964), but we haven't got it, either. It came around once on TCM years ago. Basically, I have known about these movies since grad school, but seen almost none of them. I heard Kenneth Williams long before I saw him. Jim Dale I knew from Pete's Dragon (1977) and the original Broadway cast of Barnum.
and then I did an A-Level project for media studies on 1950s comedy and realised that, for all their faults, they're actually a damn sight less sexist than most other contemporary comedy stuff, even the respectable 'classics'
That seems a very nice thing to find out. Also I am mildly surprised and conclude from that that the state of sexism in mid-century comedy was dismal.
things like Barbara Windsor marrying an East End criminal and taking Kenneth Williams with them on the honeymoon
I hope they were very happy.
It's no wonder people write plays, although I kind of hate all of them because I am not good at watching things where people aren't actually the real people and I know the real ones from other things.
Do you prefer written fiction about people you've actually seen, or is it all uncanny valley regardless of medium?
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Aw, what happened to Teacher? That's my favourite of the very early ones! Still, that is a pretty good cache to fall over anyway.
Carry On Sergeant, as the first, is actually fairly bland 1950s comedy stuff, an adaptation of an RF Delderfield novel, I think. But there's no other reason to leave it off if you're feeling like just going through them. It does at least have William Hartnell.
Regardless is almost a sketch collection, but some of the set-pieces are very nice and it gives good Joan Sims, always important when it comes to my ranking of them. XD So I have a soft spot for this one, despite its odd format.
But you have Cabby and Cowboy! Cabby is probably my favourite of all of them. It's the kitchen sink of Carry Ons, and I am, despite my love of the fantastical, somehow always helplessly drawn in by kitchen sink stuff of that era. But it was also Hattie's favourite and it's not hard to see why. <3 Cowboy is probably terribly problematic, but I kind of adore it. It has Jon Pertwee and the Brigadier's future wife and it's Joan Sims's favourite (and you can see why).
I don't think I like Dick, though, but I'm not sure why. But then once it gets into the 70s, they are more variable. I may just not have seen it as much as the others, though. I don't know whether that counts as a warning or not, heh. It might go too far for me, it might just be my poor memory...?
Khyber is obv problematic as a send-up of all those big colonial epics, although, tbf, not as much as the originals, but it has THE best set-piece and a joyfully childish premise. It's my guity fave by a mile. Hopefully the fates will align some time so that you can decide whether or not you'd agree.
The only ones I would say to avoid are the last ones - Emanuelle, England, and of course, the reboot effort that was Columbus. Right at the end they were trying too hard to compete with much more titillating 1970s series, like the Confessions of... stuff and it just isn't good. England I've seen, and wish I hadn't really, and I've heard that Emanuelle is pretty much the worst with the opriginal cast, so I've always chosen not to watch it; ditto Columbus. Obv YMMV should they fall into your hands, but those are the only ones I'd advise to avoid. Jungle comes with a big warning for a blacked up Bernard Bresslaw, though. I personally am not keen on Carry On Again Doctor, or Camping, and Carry on Doctor is fun, but it has an atypically harsh ending, which bothers me more now than it did when I was much younger and Middle Sis and I thought it was the heights of comedy. Those are personal choices, though, and there's definitely a scene in Again Doctor with Kenneth and Jim Dale that would probably be relevant to your interests.)
Anyway, sorry, waffling again!
Also I am mildly surprised and conclude from that that the state of sexism in mid-century comedy was dismal.
Aha, yes, sorry, I was forgetting that the only two you've seen as yet are Cleo and Screaming and the genre-parodies don't exactly shine in that regard, even if they at least can stop and point it out in Screaming. I'm not saying they're not sexist, either, obviously, but once you've seen the early b&w bunch, in comparison to other late 1950s films, hopefully you'll find that that's not quite such an indictment as it sounds! Carry On women rarely lack agency at least. (As it progresses, it's much more variable, but I don't think the first set do too badly for that era particularly. And they are, of course, as everyone ever has said, very much the film version of the seaside postcard, so yeah.)
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It was an unexpected and welcome windfall! I'll ask
Carry On Sergeant, as the first, is actually fairly bland 1950s comedy stuff, an adaptation of an RF Delderfield novel, I think.
I know it wasn't intended as the first of a series, but I am interested in it: I always like seeing where things start out.
But there's no other reason to leave it off if you're feeling like just going through them. It does at least have William Hartnell.
I used to be indifferent to Hartnell and then he was adorable in The Dark Tower (1943) and ever since I've been glad to see him in things, although he is usually not adorable in them.
But you have Cabby and Cowboy! Cabby is probably my favourite of all of them. It's the kitchen sink of Carry Ons, and I am, despite my love of the fantastical, somehow always helplessly drawn in by kitchen sink stuff of that era. But it was also Hattie's favourite and it's not hard to see why. <3 Cowboy is probably terribly problematic, but I kind of adore it. It has Jon Pertwee and the Brigadier's future wife and it's Joan Sims's favourite (and you can see why).
I shall look forward! A Carry On Western makes perfect sense; a kitchen sink Carry On is a fascinating concept.
Khyber is obv problematic as a send-up of all those big colonial epics, although, tbf, not as much as the originals, but it has THE best set-piece and a joyfully childish premise. It's my guity fave by a mile. Hopefully the fates will align some time so that you can decide whether or not you'd agree.
Thank you! The BFI also liked it, which is what put it on my radar fifteen years ago.
I personally am not keen on Carry On Again Doctor, or Camping, and Carry on Doctor is fun, but it has an atypically harsh ending, which bothers me more now than it did when I was much younger and Middle Sis and I thought it was the heights of comedy. Those are personal choices, though, and there's definitely a scene in Again Doctor with Kenneth and Jim Dale that would probably be relevant to your interests.)
So noted! I'll let you know what happens if we run across them.
Carry On women rarely lack agency at least. (As it progresses, it's much more variable, but I don't think the first set do too badly for that era particularly.
It's good to know! And I've read Plautus and Aristophanes; it's not like I have no tolerance for the conventions of farce.
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XD Well, you can't start off a 50+ year phenomenon against all the odds without a certain amount of charm and talent to win the audience over. ♥ (Look, he's the Doctor. The definite article, you might say. ;-p) Not that it's especially visible in Sergeant, sadly. As you say in your other review, he got typecast as hard-nosed sergeants and this was yet another one. But in the end, Verity Lambert found him & talked him into the role of a lifetime, so it all worked out for everyone. (Which reminds me; she saw him in This Sporting Life, and I think I recorded that at some point. I have a whole bunch of films recorded on the DVR, but I don't always have the strength to watch them downstairs!! So they wait until I can or I get fed up of them being there making me feel bad about not watching them and delete them.)
What do you like so much about Carry On Teacher?
Oh, I don't know. I just find it the most fun of those, I think - I like Kenneth Connor in it particularly and Joan Sims manhandling Leslie Phillips! (The early ones are pre-Talbot Rothwell; Cabby is where Talbot Rothwell arrives (I think??), and then the later ones are post-Talbot Rothwell, and that's the three main categories of Carry Ons, really.)
I shall look forward! A Carry On Western makes perfect sense; a kitchen sink Carry On is a fascinating concept.
XD
The BFI also liked it, which is what put it on my radar fifteen years ago.
I think you'd also enjoy Don't Lose Your Head if you can find it. For a few moments, but particularly because the end set-piece is possibly the most epic comedy sword-fight ever committed to film, largely featuring Charles Hawtrey.
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I love how tired his sister is of him saying it, which guarantees the exit callback.