Screaming that it is most certainly a
Carry On film, with its pungent innuendo and sheepish sexism, but its exploration of a genre in this case, the lurid fillips of Hammer Horror reveal genuine skill and appreciation… between its bouts of bawdy humour, it is actually scary… But, at the end of the day, It is still a comedy and a very funny one at that .
Andrew Collins began his media career in the mid-80s, laying out pages for the NME, eventually becoming a regular writer for the weekly music paper and then features editor.
He has since worked for Select, Empire and Q, and has been the film editor for
All of the Sussex filming locations used in the Carry On movies - Images - The Argus
Who doesn t love a good Carry On film? Spanning film, stage and screen the Carry On franchise was one of the most iconic of the last century releasing more than 30 movies. Epitomising British comedy at the time, the films humour was based around the tradition of music hall and bawdy seaside postcards - making the Sussex coastline an ideal filming location. They were produced by Peter Rogers and directed by the great Gerald Thomas who drew on a regular pool of actors including Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims and Barbara Windsor.
The curse of Steptoe and Son: how the sitcom ruined its star’s career
John Gielgud praised his Richard II for Joan Littlewood, so why did Harry H Corbett end his days in panto? There s only one role to blame
7 February 2021 • 12:00pm
Harry H Corbett, pictured here with Wilfrid Brambell in Steptoe and Son, was stuck with the role for 14 years
Credit: Mike Lawn/Getty
Harry H Corbett – he of the lustreless, big red-rimmed eyes; “the hulking figure in the tatty overcoat and turned-down gumboots”; the faint rhotacism and a voice that was like a flame, swaying and trembling – was born in Rangoon in 1925. I picture a Kipling background – tough non-commissioned officers in a hot corner of the Empire; a world of duty and service and forbearance; of burdens carried. (“I’m beginning to be a burden, am I?” Albert Steptoe one day challenges his son, Harold, who replies: “No white man ever had a bigger one. But rest assured, I will not fail in my filial duty.”)
Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Williams were Carry On regulars
But are they so really irredeemably terrible, and if so why are so many people still fond of them? I think they are significant for a number of reasons.
First, they form an extant connection with the music hall era. Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques all cut their teeth on theatrical revues and radio shows, and were honed comic actors by the time the Carry Ons came along, good enough to make the films funnier than they had any right to be.
Also, the Carry Ons arrived at a pivotal moment in postwar British history, when the privations of rationing were at an end and an increasingly prosperous working class was beginning to throw off its traditional deference.