"Don't Lose Your Head" (1966)
30 January 2021 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI ended up with the feeling that the colourful Scarlet Pimpernel spoof "Don't Lose Your Head" (which I suspect would have been released as "Carry On Chopping" if it had appeared as part of the 'regular' Carry On series) really ought to have been much better than it was, sadly.
I think a lot of the problem is with the pacing, which often drags -- and the general sword-fight at the end is *much* too long. Unfortunately I didn't find it one of the series' best scripts, either, though it does have some notable lines in it: my favourite was the classic pier-end humour of the "London Derriere" contrasted with the "country seat" when referring to a lady's nether regions, which managed to pull off a simultaneous pun and double-entendre.
Sid James in his multiple roles gets a chance to show that he really could act (and he can), in addition to playing his standard 'Carry On' geezer with the dirty laugh. Jim Dale, as his dashing sidekick Lord Darcy, turns out to be one of those people to whom a powdered wig is extremely flattering -- I really wasn't expecting this handsome figure to pop up from among the ranks of the regular cast! Charles Hawtrey is cast clean against type as a womanising cocksure bantam of a French Duke, and again is quite unexpectedly good in the part -- it makes a change to see these actors pulling off a complete break from their usual roles.
Kenneth Williams as 'Citizen Camembert', on the other hand, is busy playing himself as usual, and it gets rather tiresome (he's funnier when he isn't pulling faces and being nasally camp, and I prefer his screen characters when they actually succeed at things from time to time instead of being totally clueless). And I didn't find the jokes about 'the big cheese' funny in the first place, let alone when repeated. Joan Sims gets a good role as his mistress Desirée, who hankers after the luxuries of the ancien régime, and when the man-hungry Desirée is set to subvert the womanising Duke de Pommesfrites the results are genuinely funny (because not overmilked for too long).
The duel scene reminded me when I first saw it of Buster Keaton's take on the same theme in "The Passionate Plumber"(?), but again here I found it was dragged out to the point of becoming annoying, rather than building to a comic crescendo. Overall I felt that a lot of the more protracted scenes would have been more effective if they'd been tightened up a bit, particularly the ones involving the clowning of clueless duo Camembert and Bidet -- some of their material *is* funny, especially when they have a third party to play off, but their exchanges tend to be laboured rather than witty, and in retrospect I wonder if part of the problem was Kenneth Williams making an active attempt to hog the screen beyond what his actual part would bear. (Apparently he resented having Sid James brought back in as the leading character.)
Worth seeing for Sid James and Joan Sims, if nothing else (and there's a blink-and-you'll-definitely-miss-it cameo from Servalan herself... with hair!) There's nothing wrong with the plot -- apart from a distinct impression that they ran out of ideas for how to fill the last few minutes -- and the costumes and locations are surprisingly lavish, with the cast seeming quite at home in eighteenth-century garb. It just didn't seem to fulfil its promise.
Maybe I'm reading my general disenchantment with life back into it...
I think a lot of the problem is with the pacing, which often drags -- and the general sword-fight at the end is *much* too long. Unfortunately I didn't find it one of the series' best scripts, either, though it does have some notable lines in it: my favourite was the classic pier-end humour of the "London Derriere" contrasted with the "country seat" when referring to a lady's nether regions, which managed to pull off a simultaneous pun and double-entendre.
Sid James in his multiple roles gets a chance to show that he really could act (and he can), in addition to playing his standard 'Carry On' geezer with the dirty laugh. Jim Dale, as his dashing sidekick Lord Darcy, turns out to be one of those people to whom a powdered wig is extremely flattering -- I really wasn't expecting this handsome figure to pop up from among the ranks of the regular cast! Charles Hawtrey is cast clean against type as a womanising cocksure bantam of a French Duke, and again is quite unexpectedly good in the part -- it makes a change to see these actors pulling off a complete break from their usual roles.
Kenneth Williams as 'Citizen Camembert', on the other hand, is busy playing himself as usual, and it gets rather tiresome (he's funnier when he isn't pulling faces and being nasally camp, and I prefer his screen characters when they actually succeed at things from time to time instead of being totally clueless). And I didn't find the jokes about 'the big cheese' funny in the first place, let alone when repeated. Joan Sims gets a good role as his mistress Desirée, who hankers after the luxuries of the ancien régime, and when the man-hungry Desirée is set to subvert the womanising Duke de Pommesfrites the results are genuinely funny (because not overmilked for too long).
The duel scene reminded me when I first saw it of Buster Keaton's take on the same theme in "The Passionate Plumber"(?), but again here I found it was dragged out to the point of becoming annoying, rather than building to a comic crescendo. Overall I felt that a lot of the more protracted scenes would have been more effective if they'd been tightened up a bit, particularly the ones involving the clowning of clueless duo Camembert and Bidet -- some of their material *is* funny, especially when they have a third party to play off, but their exchanges tend to be laboured rather than witty, and in retrospect I wonder if part of the problem was Kenneth Williams making an active attempt to hog the screen beyond what his actual part would bear. (Apparently he resented having Sid James brought back in as the leading character.)
Worth seeing for Sid James and Joan Sims, if nothing else (and there's a blink-and-you'll-definitely-miss-it cameo from Servalan herself... with hair!) There's nothing wrong with the plot -- apart from a distinct impression that they ran out of ideas for how to fill the last few minutes -- and the costumes and locations are surprisingly lavish, with the cast seeming quite at home in eighteenth-century garb. It just didn't seem to fulfil its promise.
Maybe I'm reading my general disenchantment with life back into it...
