Carry on Cruising (1962) - film review

Wellington Crowther is the captain of a Mediterranean cruise ship, the SS Happy Wanderer.  If his next cruise goes well, he expects to get a transfer to a brand new transatlantic liner, which for him would be a dream promotion.  Unfortunately, it looks as if this dream might be scuppered, since five of his crew have been replaced by what, at first sight, look like category one imbeciles.  Within no time at all, First Officer Marjoribanks (pronounced Marchbanks), ship’s surgeon Dr Binn, ship’s cook Wilfred Haines, steward Tom Tree and barman Sam Turner have made their mark, a dirty great black one in the captain’s books.  Meanwhile, two of the passengers, Flo and Gladys, are on the look out for prospective husbands.  Whilst one is understandably taken with the gym instructor, the other somehow attracts the attention of Dr Binn...

With five box office hits under their belt, the Carry On team finally make it into glorious Eastman colour.  Alas, the jokes are the same and any improvement in production values is hardly perceptible.  If anything, Carry On Crusing feels like an uninspired compilation of the previous films in the series.  The plot (what there is of it) is virtually identical to that of Carry On Teacher, and many of the jokes and comic situations are obviously recycled from the earlier films.  Fortunately, the familar Carry On stars are out in force, shipshape and Bristol fashion, to make this egregious bout of wilful self-plagiarism worth watching.

Kenneth Connor, who had inexplicably bagged most of the screentime in the first five Carry On films, is knocked back a peg or two here and ends up playing second fiddle to the unbeatable team of Sid James and Kenneth Williams.  James had yet to get into his stride and is still cast pretty much as the straight man, but he gives great value, as ever, and his exchanges with Williams provide the film with its funniest moments.  Dilys Laye was a last minute substitution for Joan Sims, who was unavailable for the film, and Lance Percival replaced Charles Hawtrey when the latter’s agent failed to wheedle a large pay increase out of producer Peter Rogers.

Having somehow managed to get away with using the same basic storyline six times (is that a record?), screenwriter Norman Hudis bows out at this (low) point.  In the next film, Carry On Cabby, the great Talbot Rothwell would take over and, within a year or two, effectively create what we now recognise as the classic Carry On film.  Carry On Cruising is by no means the best of the early Carry Ons, but it is inoffensive fun and, with its reliance on slapstick rather than innuendo, is the one film in the series that is better suited for children than adults.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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