This fourth edition of Via Vision’s bringing together the legendary British comedy series reaches the late ‘60s with a quartet of classics that, despite familiarity, still shine as the crème of British talent pratfall and double entendre their way through various points of history.
The series reaches the two films that originally didn’t contain the Carry On prefix, Don’t Lose Your Head (1967) and Follow that Camel (1967). They still contain the same team in front of and behind the camera, although the latter sees American comedian Phil Silvers (a hit with audiences as Sgt Bilko) replacing Sid James, who was filming the TV series George and the Dragon. This was a cynical attempt to break the American market, and Silvers is clearly out of place with the regular team and the very British ribald humour, coming across as more brash than we’d been used to. It still works as a pastiche of the Foreign Legion movies, though. Don’t Lose Your Head tackles the French Revolution with James on top form as the Black Fingernail. Kenneth Williams is the revolutionary leader who attempts to bring the mysterious Fingernail to the gallows for helping so many noble folk escape their grisly fate. Jim Dale continues his short stint as part of the main team, which he continues fantastically in Carry On Doctor (1967). He’s joined by guest headliner Frankie Howerd, who brings his own idiosyncratic mannerisms to the team for the first of only two appearances. James is confined to a smaller part (ahem). It boasts some of the best innuendo seen up to this point in Carry On history (which would get more pronounced and risqué as films continue) and is rightfully a much-loved classic. Rounding up the box set is Carry On Up the Khyber (1968), one of the most famous of the series, which spoofs the ‘boys’ own’ Rudyard Kipling-type stories. Perhaps unfortunate is the appearance of Bernard Bresslaw as Bungdit Din (foreshadowing his full brownface in Carry On Up the Jungle). As with all these films, we have to take them as objects of the times they were made and acknowledge the wrongness.
The box set is complemented with some great extras, which include commentaries on each film, four episodes of the TV series Carry On Laughing from 1976, and four from the ‘80s compilation series of the same name. These are presented in standard definition rather than upscaled, which is how they should be. Watching these takes us back to a time when the series was TV gold. When the films weren’t playing (uncut, too!), the compilation show would fit in the ITV schedule where vacuous soaps and ‘celebrity’ fodder do now. Another new featurette looks at the work of composer Eric Rogers, whose themes are indelibly planted in our minds.
The films are a true part of British cinema history. Even with modern sensibilities, they are still utterly hilarious and endlessly watchable. Getting them with 4K scans is wonderful; they look so much better than we could have dreamed.
CARRY ON COLLECTION 4 is out now from the Australian label Via Vision.
