Carry on England (1976) - film review

England, 1940.  A mixed sex anti-aircraft battery has been set up somewhere in England but, despite the best efforts of the military commanders, no one has yet succeeded in converting the unruly ensemble of male and female privates into an effective fighting force.  In desperation, the top brass send Captain S. Melly, a renowned bungler, to the battery, in the hope that his incompetence and ignorance may succeed where skill and cunning have so far failed.  Unfortunately, Melly is up against a formidable challenge, since his privates are far more preoccupied with making love than war...

When Carry On England hit cinema screens in the UK in 1976 it was clear to just about everyone (except perhaps producer Peter Rogers) that the Carry On series was dead and buried.  Most of the regulars had departed, the Carry On innuendo-based humour was hopelessly dated, and the production team couldn’t find a writer to replace the great Talbot Rothwell, who had delivered the series’ best films.  By trying to emulate the smutty sex comedies of the time, exemplified by the Confessions films, the Carry Ons merely hastened their own demise.

The plot of Carry On England was originally intended for ATV’s popular television series Carry On Laughing, but Peter Rogers thought that it would work better as a full-length film.  What Rogers probably had in mind was an updated version of Carry On Sergeant, the film that launched the series in 1958.  What he got was a shambolic mess consisting of  lewd humour of the most cringe-worthy kind and pathetic attempts at slapstick – an obscene parody of a Carry On film. 

It is a mystery just why the production team chose to put the loyal regulars (Joan Sims and Peter Butterworth) in minor supporting roles, whilst newcomers Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson (who have next to no ability as comic performers) were given starring roles.  Windsor Davies at least looks as if he is trying to be funny, even if he is merely reprising his role from the BBC TV series It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.  Kenneth Connor receives top-billing even though it is abundantly clear that he is not star material.  Even if Kenneth Williams had agreed to appear in this film (luckily he wasn’t because of other commitments), he would only have been cast in a minor role (that played by Peter Jones).  Carry On Self-Immolation would have been a better title.

Sid James, the king of the Carry Ons, had died a week before filming began, and this could explain the funereal mood that pervades the film.  For a comedy, this is a pretty grim affair, and it feels that the entire life force and humour have been drained from it by some vampiric entity (although it could equally be put down to appalling screenwriting).  There  may well be one or two good jokes in this film, but unless you have detection equipment which is at least ten times the size of Jodrell Bank, you are unlikely to find them.

Not surprisingly, Carry On England bombed at the box office (no pun intended) and it took many years to recover its production cost through television screenings and video sales.  It was only the second Carry On to lose money, after Carry On At Your Convenience (1971) (which, incidentally, is a far, far better film).   You would have thought that by this time Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas would have got the message.  But no, there would be one more nail in the coffin before the series was consigned to history.  And what a nail it would be...

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