Carry on Teacher (1959) - film review

A week before the end of the school term, acting-headmaster Mr Wakefield tells his staff that he intends to apply for the post of headmaster at a brand new comprehensive.  He also announces that over the coming week the school will be visited by Miss Wheeler, a schools inspector, and Mr Grigg, a radical child psychologist.  Wakefield is dependent on a good report from Miss Wheeler if he is to stand a chance of getting his dream posting.  Unfortunately, this news is overheard by one of the pupils, Robin Stevens, who is dismayed by the prospect of Wakefield’s imminent departure.  Enlisting the help of his schoolmates, Robin organises a series of practical jokes that will ensure the acting-headmaster will get into Miss Wheeler’s bad books...

With Carry On Sergeant (1958) and Carry On Nurse (1959) both proving to be a box office success, producer Peter Rogers must have felt he had struck a goldmine and wasted no time delivering more of the same, beginning with Carry On Teacher.  Like the two films that preceded it, Teacher is a far more sober film than we normally associate with the Carry On team, relying more on slapstick and wordplay for its humour than the crude innuendo and double entendre which would come to predominate in later years.

The plot is essentially a rehash of what he had in the first Carry On film, except that the setting is now a boisterous London high school rather than an army camp.  Although woefully simplistic in its characterisation of teachers and children, Carry on Teacher is spot on with its lampooning of the crackpot theories that were being espoused by child psychologists at the time, notions which threatened a teacher’s ability to maintain discipline in the classroom.  (It can be argued that the crackpots, aided by overly liberal politicians, have won the day, and in doing so have made teaching a far less attractive profession than it once was.)

Although a minor entry in the Carry On series, this film is to be noted for the quality of its script and the performances from the regulars.  In particular, Kenneth Connor turns in one the best performances of his career, for once playing a character who genuinely arouses our sympathy.  Hattie Jacques makes a wonderfully tyrannical schoolmistress, although we are sadly spared the sight of her lashing out with her cane.  Even Kenneth Williams manages to put on one side his usual camp excesses and instead delivers a real character performance.  It may not be what we now expect from the Carry On team, but this was another notable success when it was first released, ensuring the series still had many more years left to run.  Of course, the best was yet to come...

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