Carry on Constable (1960) - film review

In the midst of a national flu epidemic, Sergeant Frank Wilkins wonders how his police station will cope with so many of his staff off on sick leave.  He is grateful when he learns that he has been assigned three recent graduates from police school – at least he is grateful until he sees them.  What an unpromising bunch they are.  Tom Potter, a society playboy who has had to forego his champagne lifestyle.  Stanley Benson, a know-all who thinks that forensic physiognomy is the key to fighting crime.  And Charlie Constable (that’s right: Constable Constable), who is obsessively superstitious and believes that every aspect of human existence is governed by the planetary bodies.   Sergeant Wilkins has been warned by his inspector that if his recruits fail in their duties, he will be transferred to another station.  Going by his first impressions of Potter, Benson and Constable, Wilkins wonders whether he will see the week out.  Sure enough, it isn’t long before his new recruits begin to live down to his expectations...

With three successes behind them, the Carry On team were well into their stride when the fourth, Carry On Constable, went into production, and it is at this point that one of the most familiar members of the team made his entrance, Sid James.  James was a last minute replacement for Ted Ray, who had featured in the previous film, Carry on Teacher, but was unable to appear in Carry On Constable owing to contractual obligations with rival company ABC.  Sid James would appear in 19 of the 29 Carry On films, having already built a successful career for himself on film and radio.

In common with the three previous Carry On films, Constable pokes fun at authority figures (this time police officers) whilst championing the little man (the bobby on the beat).  Whilst the humour is less risqué, far less reliant on innuendo and double entendre than subsequent entries in the series, there is more than a smattering of the saucy seaside postcard humour which would become the trademark of the Carry On films.  This is the first of the Carry Ons to feature a nude scene, unusually one that involves unsightly males (the four constables running naked out of a shower room) rather than well-proportioned dolly birds.

With Sid James playing the straight man (and brilliantly so), it falls to his co-stars to deliver the gags, which they do with great élan.  Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey have an amusing drag number (which both actors are clearly enjoying far too much) whilst Hattie Jacques plays cupid to Kenneth Connor and Joan Sims.  Leslie Philips makes the last of his three appearances in the original Carry Ons (he would return for the misfired Carry On Columbus in 1992).   Less reliant on the kind of low humour that quickly became stale and repetitive in the later Carry Ons, Constable is an enjoyable family-friendly romp that has aged far better than many of the other films in the series.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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