Film Review
The egalities and fraternities may have fallen by the wayside, but the
Carry On team clearly couldn't
resist taking more than a few liberties with the French Revolution in this
hilarious spoof of Baroness Orczy's novel
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Don't Lose Your Head was the first
Carry On film to be made after the switch of distributor, from Anglo
Amalgamated to the Rank Organisation. Rank weren't keen on the
Carry On prefix and so it was
dropped for this and the next film in the series,
Follow That Camel (1967), but was
hastily reinstated when these films fared poorly at the box office
compared with previous
Carry Ons.
What is most striking about
Don't
Lose Your Head is how lavish it looks, with its expansive and
detailed sets, ornate costumes and appealing cinematography.
Visually, it compares well with the big budget period dramas of the
time, even though, like most of the
Carry
Ons of this era, it was shot in just six weeks on a
shoestring budget of £150,000 (
Thunderball,
the most recent Bond movie, had cost more than ten times that
amount). At this stage, the
Carry On production team,
which included some exceptionally talented designers and technicians,
had made low budget filmmaking into an art. The team had the good
fortune to shoot much of the film on location at two stately homes,
Cliveden House and Waddesdon Manor, (both within a stone's throw of
Pinewood Studios, where the
Carry Ons
were filmed), which upped the production values immensely.
As well as being one of the most visually impressive of the
Carry Ons,
Don't Lose Your Head offers a
torrent of gags (from the ribald pen of Talbot Rothwell), served up with their
usual mix of aplomb and eccentricity by the
Carry On regulars.
Kenneth Williams and Peter Butterworth steal the show with their
magnificent double act, with Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale lending
support in the visual gags department. Meanwhile, Sid James's
impression of a Regency fop has to be seen to be believed (and even
then it takes some believing) and, for once, Joan Sims gets to play the
glamour girl, looking stunning in her period costume.
Dany Robin, a well-known French actress at the time, is the guest artiste, taking
the part that would otherwise have gone to Angela Douglas. (Not
long after appearing in this film, Robin would marry Sid James's agent,
Michael Sullivan, and give up acting altogether.)
Playing the fearsome fun-loving psychopath Robespierre is Peter
Gilmore, the future star of the long-running BBC television series
The Onedin Line.
Jacqueline Pearce, later to be known as Servalan in the cult BBC TV
series
Blake's Seven, appears
in one brief scene; the same year she met a nasty end in two notable Hammer
horror films -
The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
and
The Reptile (1966) -
so no wonder she ended up playing a power-crazed megalomaniac.
As ever, there's absolutely no shortage of
talent on either side of the camera in this
Carry On extravaganza.
In common with many of the
Carry Ons,
the standing of
Don't Lose Your Head
has improved greatly since the film was first released.
With its exceptional production values, delightfully over-the-top
performances and barrage of gags, it is one of the classier and more
enjoyable entries in the series. It is to be noted for the
extended swordfight sequence at the end of the film, which is one of
the longest of its kind in any British film (and certainly one of the
funniest).
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Gerald Thomas film:
Carry on Doctor (1967)
Film Synopsis
In the early 1790s, a bloody tide of revolution sweeps across
France. Supporters of the old order, the
châteauneuf-swigging aristocrats, are losing their heads by the
cartload, thanks to a new nifty little device called the guillotine
(the world's first disposable razor). The man charged with
eradicating France's hated nobility is Citizen Camembert, Robespierre's
chief of secret police, and his faithful stooge, Citizen Bidet.
The heads fall, the crowds roar and Camembert can look forward to a
comfortable retirement. Meanwhile, across the channel in England,
life goes on as usual. Sir Rodney Ffing and his friend Lord Darcy
Pue have grown tired of their genteel life and, hearing about what is
happening in France, they decide to embark on a great adventure.
Adopting various disguises, they make a habit of snatching the
condemned aristos from the scaffold and smuggling them to the safety of
good old England. On each occasion, they leave behind a calling
card depicting a pair of fingers, one with a black fingernail.
Understandably, Citizen Robespierre is none too pleased by this
development and warns Camembert that if he botches the execution of the
Duke de Pommfrit his will be the next head on the block.
Not only does the mysterious 'Black Fingernail' succeed in rescuing
Pommfrit from right under his very nose, but Camembert assists in the
beheading of his own executioner. As he beats a hasty
retreat to England, Sir Rodney evades capture with the help of a
beautiful young French girl, Jacqueline. The dastardly Camembert
takes Jacqueline prisoner and devises a foolproof plan to use her as
bait to catch the Black Fingernail...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.