Carry on Cruising (1962)

[igenlode]

I think the main problem with this film is the script. I remembered it as being one of the less successful Carry Ons (I'd actually assumed it was a lame late effort, but apparently it's relatively early), and at the beginning I thought it was going to be cringe-makingly awful. A series of woefully unfunny jokes are laughed at loudly by the characters, and then there is some very crude slapstick of the custard pie/foot in bucket variety.

But it does pick up eventually, from bad to mildly tolerable. One welcome twist is that Kenneth William's supercilious First Officer actually turns out to be competent at fixing other people's problems for a change, rather than being a walking disaster zone. Kenneth Connor eventually manages to make his love-lorn doctor into a fairly sympathetic character (again, by demonstrating some actual competence -- I just don't find stupidity entertaining). Sid James either gets less clunky lines than most of the rest of the cast, or manages to deliver them better. Esma Cannon is a welcome addition to the cast as an eccentric little old lady with a knack for stealing any scene she's in.

But, basically, the script isn't clever and (therefore) it isn't -- to me at least -- funny. The "Carry On" series is all about the word-play (and the doubles-entendres), and there aren't many memorable lines in this film. The last one I saw was "Carry On at your Convenience", which, given the fact that it's set in a toilet factory, ought to be primitive humour in the extreme -- it's actually a great deal more inventive and sophisticated, both in terms of plot and humour.

Comments

[sallymn]

Sid James was not a great actor, but I always think he was a lot better than given credit for.

[igenlode]

He was a professional. A character actor, not a star -- he wasn't greedy for the limelight and all his best-known roles are in collaboration -- and one with an impressive work ethic. He always knew his lines, never ad-libbed for attention, and took every job he could physically juggle into his schedule; the list of his screen credits alone is boggling.

And like every professional comic actor, he had an excellent sense of timing. Apparently his one regret was that despite his looks he never got to play genuinely nasty characters -- it was always the crooked geezer with a heart of gold.