Carry on Regardless

This film is definitely in the top three of Carry On films.

Alongside the early line-up of usual players - Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor and Sid James - this film is notable for its host of cameo roles by other comedy greats. Some, such as Hattie Jacques and Fenella Fielding, had greater prominence in other Carry On films. Some, such as Betty Marsden, became famous elsewhere in comedy. Further familiar faces in cameo roles here include Molly Weir, Terence Alexander, Joan Hickson and Nicholas Parsons.

The five main actors listed above are ably assisted by Liz Frazer, Bill Owen, Esma Cannon, Terence Longdon and Stanley Unwin, all united around an agency that aims to help customers in whatever way they can. Hence the great range of cameo roles available.

Joan Sims performs one of her greatest drunk roles; Kenneth Connor does his best tongue-tied shy man, both in the company of temptress Fenella Fielding and when he's attempting to give up smoking; Charles Hawtrey wins a boxing match; and Kenneth Williams gets to walk a very unusual pet.

The humour in this film is far superior to the sex and toilet jokes that later filled (and possibly destroyed) this great series of films. This is a film that the family can watch time and time again.

With work sparse in England, the labour exchanges have become almost a social club with so many men hanging around without joy. It is in this environment that Bert Handy spots an opening for a firm carrying out any odd-jobs on request and thus the "Helping Hands Agency" is born. Recruiting a gang of odds and sods, Bert quickly finds that there are all manner of jobs out there to be done that don't fit anywhere. However can his men all cope with the sheer range of jobs thrown at them? About 10 minutes into this film I started to realise that this had no plot. At regular intervals from then on this view was reinforced as the film just became a series of sketches using the odd-job company as a frame for setting each one up. This sounds like a criticism because it is but surprisingly it was not a real problem because the sketches are mostly pretty funny and the amusement they make up for the total lack of any actual narrative drive. The sketches mostly stand alone but are not that contrived or forced – only the mixed up jobs part is a little forced; the wine tasting, the translated argument, the home improvement show and others are all consistently amusing even if none of them had me rolling in the aisles.

The cast all take to the sketch format with their comedy background. James has the least role since he has to act as the glue holding the funny bits together but he does get some laughs and he is rarely less than interesting and amusing. Connor, Williams and Hawtrey all do the characters they had done in the previous four films – all of them are funny and they do well in their various sketches. Owen joins the male cast in a minor role while Sims and Fraser are stuck with "pretty young girl" roles which minimise their comic impact a little bit. Support from Jacques, Hickson, Cannon, Alexander and others is good and they make the film feel fuller than it would have done with only the main roles filled with well known faces.

Overall on the surface of things this is a plot less mess that has no rhyme or reason to it; however it does set up a series of sketches that are mostly pretty amusing. It won't be remember as fondly as the later Carry On films that produced laughs with a fuller plot and costumes but it is still an enjoyable film that shows how good the group were as comics. Not quite what you think of when you think Carry On but an entertaining collection of sketches nonetheless.

For their fifth venture, the usual "Carry On" suspects (Sidney James, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey. Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques) are joined by other irregular members (Fenella Fielding, Liz Fraser, Esma Cannon, Terence Longdon, Bill Owen, David Lodge and Norman Rossington) and some surprising cameos (Stanley Unwin, Jerry Desmonde, Kynaston Reeves, Howard Marion Crawford and Patrick Cargill) in a frequently hilarious but ultimately patchy and disjointed romp.

James' Bert Handy heads "Helping Hands", a well-meaning but hopelessly incompetent firm providing any services the customer may require: and, so it is that James is asked by an eccentric millionaire to take his place in the queue at a hospital's waiting room and is consequently mistaken for him and waited on by the matron (Jacques, naturally); Connor is in top form here: ostensibly hired as a babysitter, he finds himself acting as Fielding's lover to arouse her neglectful husband, being a librarian driven to hysterics when attempting to observe a public library's rule of silence, getting himself all wet when, completely misunderstanding a client's request, he engages in some Hitchcockian espionage aboard a train full of sinister passengers, getting engulfed by the "Bed of the Century" when attending an Ideal Home exhibition and, best of all perhaps, going "cold turkey" after his sixth attempt to stop smoking; Sims also has a memorable bit when she ends up drunk at a wine-tasting event and makes a shambles of the place to the chagrin of organizer Crawford; Hawtrey goes into the ring against a massive opponent when, acting as his second, he inadvertently injures the challenger!; Williams enjoys a tea party with a group of chimps at the zoo, etc.

The finale shows Cannon's infallible filing system going bonkers with each member of the group being sent out on the wrong assignment and, afterwards, the whole gang join forces in demolishing a dilapidated building…even if their original task was merely to clean it up a bit! In a notable appearance, celebrated comedian Stanley Unwin speaks his trademark nonsense language and drives the entire crew to distraction during his intermittent visits to their office…before multi-linguist Williams manages to explain that he is their landlord and is about to throw them out!

As one can make out, there are several funny bits in this film but it is also evident that its inherently episodic structure (which entails that some of the gang members are given precedence over others) fails to coalesce into a cohesive and completely satisfying whole.

The Carry on genre of films was in the late fifties, sixties and early seventies a British institution. I have a special soft spot for Carry on Regardless, as the exterior scenes of the Employment Exchange were filmed at Yiewsley Town Hall (Middlesex), just a couple or so miles up the road from Pinewood Studios, and more importantly for me just a few hundred yards from my school. Myself and several of my class mates bunked off school to watch the shooting, and although we were not allowed to get anywhere near the actors, the film crew let us watch from across the road, which was very exciting for an eleven year old. We got caned the next day for bunking off school, but in hindsight it was worth it. Apart from my personal bias, I do think that Regardless was one of the funnier Carry On's, it had moved on from the rather twee Carry On Sergeant, rather silly Carry On Teacher, and showed the beginnings of saucy postcard humour which were to become the films trademark. Sadly, the Carry On films lost their way in the mid 70's, Carry on England being painful to watch and Carry on Emmanuel being more a porn film than a classic British comedy.

This is a great Carry On. The unemployed group together (under Sid James aka Mr Handy) to provide 'services' to various people for a fee. Special treat is Stanley Unwin who is desperately trying to warn them of their impending eviction, but due to his gobbldygook language, they don't understand. Until Kenneth Williams (an equally skilled orator) comes to the rescue. Best bit definitely Kenneth Connor in the Gentlemans club. Almost as good - Kenneth Williams walking the Chimp, Kenneth Williams interpreting for the German Woman, Kenneth Connor and Joan Simms (No sweets, no draws), Stanley Unwin all the time, Charles Hawtrey boxing ..... no, there's too many good bits to recount.