Carry on at Your Convenience

I like this entry in the series, I really do. Many others however find it a dud and feel that it should be flushed down one of the toilets that feature at W.C. Boggs' factory in the film. Blending the obvious toilet gags with a tale about unionised shop floors, the Carry On team have actually crafted one of the franchise's less mucky pictures. Sid James, so long the bastion of sexually driven lechery in Carry On folklore, has a very restrained role in this one, and this to me somewhat explains to an extent why "Convenience" is often shunned by the series fans.

Elsewhere it's the subplots away from the factory that put the smile on my face. Charles Hawtrey is indulging in strip poker with shop steward, Vic Spanner's mother!. While James' Sid Plummer is getting horse racing winners from his budgie!, all under the watchful eye of his apparently scatty wife Beattie (a terrific Hattie Jacques). Sexy eye candy for us blokes comes in the form of Jacki Piper, and the film finale on the Brighton seaside is drunken buffoonery to at least raise a giggle or two. Not the best Carry On by a long shot - that could have been predicted by Sid and Hattie's budgie, but certainly not one of the worst either. 6.5/10

This Carry On, which features all the main team plus some newer faces, is situated in WC Boggs' factory (toilet = bog in the UK) and goes downhill from there! Sid Plummer (Sid James) has a wife he ignores (Hattie Jacques) and a fellow workmate he is after (Joan Sims); while his daughter is after the managing director's son. There's an annoying shop steward, Spanner (Kenneth Cope in a second role in the series, after playing Cyril in Carry on Matron), who always wants to all everyone on strike.

Funny situations are never far away but the icing on the cake in this one is in two scenes - the first, where Boggs' secretary (Patsy Rowlands as the amusingly named Miss Withering) unleashes her sexual frustrations of many years on a shocked Kenneth Williams; and the second, where the works outing leads to a pub crawl where Williams passes the time getting increasingly drunk and singing bawdy songs.

There's much amusement over the manufacture of bidets but despite the gags here and there this Carry On is overall a bit of a washout. The team had done better, but this one fits in the middle ground quite well.

This is my favourite "Carry On" film.

It has a gag per minute. Most of the gags are "telegraphed" and predictable but for me this makes them so much funnier.

The film is about a toilet making factory owned by WC Boggs (note to US readers - a toilet in England is called a "bog"). 90% of the gags are related one way or another to toilets or biological functions.

If you like slapstick and toilet humour then you will love this film.

If you are pretentious and claim only to like "serious" humour then take that corn-cob out of your Khyber and watch this film anyway.

Also recommended: "Carry on Abroad"; "Carry on Matron"; "Holiday on the Buses", and "Mutiny on the Buses".

Considered by many the best ever "Carry On" film, I think I still prefer CARRY ON...UP THE KHYBER (1968) to it, but it's certainly one of the more tolerable entries in the series. Essentially an update of I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK! (1959) in its concern over working conditions in a factory and the frequent strikes ordered by the union's representative (usually over a trifle, or even a technicality in the regulations!), the fact that the manufacture involved is toiletware, the lavatorial humor associated with this team is quite appropriate here - though it never descends to the grossness which seems to be the norm for today's would-be comedies.

Most of the regulars of the series can be seen strutting their stuff (though perhaps the most notable contribution is given by newcomer Kenneth Cope as the shop steward) and there's no shortage of lewd remarks but, as I said, it's all done in fun (while these films may have been restricted to adult audiences back in the day, they're quite PG stuff today!). There's still a bit of padding involved - such as Sid James' winnings at the races (following the predictions of his wife's pet bird!), the love triangle involving Cope, Jacki Piper (as James' daughter) and Richard O'Callaghan (as the son of factory boss Kenneth Williams) and especially the lengthy outing in Brighton; all things considered, however, an enjoyable vintage comedy which is ideal viewing for the festive season.

I find this one of the most unusual carry ons,as it seems to take life a bit more serious,its more kitchen sink drama, which for this carry on is appropriate for the title.For me it has the funniest plot of all,which is the budgie who can pick horse winners,and the excellent teaming of Sid James and Hattie Jacques as the married couple.Vic the union leader and his nagging Irish mum are also very funny.Although the usually very funny Bill Maynard seems a bit wasted in this film,i don't think he gets many funny lines,if any.On the whole this is a very enjoyable carry on,and the only time you see a man get spanked in a film, which was quite original.It was a carry on, which tried to be different from the others and does succeed.Although it does still have the same naughty gags,but then thats what carry on films are for.We don't make films like these anymore so enjoy them while you can.