Raising the Wind

Although largely the work of the 'Carry On' team (it was a pet project of producer Peter Rogers') it actually feels more like one of the 'Doctor' films with bluer jokes - shot like them in pretty colour - and dealing with the travails of a mature-looking bunch of students in the days when students wore jackets & ties and £4 a week seemed a steep rent. And, of course, there's the presence of James Robertson Justice and University College Hospital standing in for the London Academy of Music and the Arts instead of St.Swithin's (while Leslie Phillips later switched to the 'Doctor' series).

This is possibly the only movie on which the composer is also the author of the script, Bruce Montgomery (briefly glimpsed conducting Handel's 'Messiah' in one sequence) being the real name of the eminent crime writer Edmund Crispin whose only screenplay this was.

A group of students at an elite music school decide to share a flat in order to cut their living costs and have somewhere to practice together. They get into quite a few scraps and adventures, including impersonating a celebrity quintet. However when Mervyn Hughes accidentally sells a catchy pop tune to an advertising agency he risks losing his scholarship unless he and his friends can raise the money to buy the rights back.

With an impressive sounding Carry-On cast featuring quite a few famous names from British comedy I was quite looking forward to this being a gently amusing little piece. Sadly I was fooled and this film turned out to be as weak and unfunny as you can imagine. The plot sees some of the oldest students I've seen sharing a flat; from here the plot has a few adventures, before splitting to be about Hughes' drunken mistakes and Malcolm's attempts to win a conducting prize. None of it really engages and, more importantly, none of it is ever really funny.

It's a shame cause you can see what they are trying to do, but none of it works and the talented cast are left high and dry without anything that is more than sporadically funny. Phillips does his usual stuff but he isn't that good; Fraser is cast as a dream girl but I have never found her looks to be worthy of that sort of role. The rest of the students seem quite bland and unmemorable - making it hard to care. Justice is OK and has good screen presence and the support cast includes cameos from James, Williams and Dale but they don't do much.

Overall this is a pretty big disappointment. The plot doesn't engage but that wouldn't matter if I'd laughed at least once or twice - but I didn't. A talented cast may draw viewers to this film but I can guarantee that they won't be enough to keep you watching. A real shame - puts paid to the idea that British comedy of the period could do no wrong.

Mercurial film-making talent Gerald Thomas, the iconic 'Carry On' impresario directs an unexpectedly spry and witty 60s musical comedy which proved to the finest in his cinematic Laugh-Time! The breezy, bon-mottled script by gifted composer Bruce Montomery is an unexpectedly clever, effervescent delight, being no less brightly performed by a luminous cast of sterling film & TV favourites, including an especially colourful performance by the avuncular character actor James Robertson Justice who is on splendidly Stentorian form as the imperious Sir Benjamin Boyd, making the most of his deliciously acid monologues! A whimsical, beautifully composed, altogether soulful comedy which rarely misses a beat! Encore! Encore!

I should confess right away that I spent two years as a student in a conservatory, and have spent all my life hanging around with musicians. I'm sure that influenced my positive opinion about this movie, and I can understand why other reviewers who don't share my background don't find it funny.

I knew I was going to enjoy it when the opening credits featured cartoons by the inimitable Gerard Hoffunung. The cast list also promised a host of Britain's most amusing character players. The script and score are by Bruce Montgomery, a fine mystery writer and film composer. And how odd that the opening scene outside the music school used the exact same filming location as was used for the hospital in "Doctor in the House." (Not to mention that the doctor's nemesis also plays the students' nemesis here, too.)

Of course, as others have pointed out, most of the actors are too old for their "student" roles, and the plot is fairly thin (but typical for a sitcom). What's funny for me are all the jokes and situations that any working musician will have had to deal with: overbearing teachers, time-wasting teachers, blabbing conductors, over-confident student hot-shots, conflict between "serious" and "pop" music, etc. If you don't know who Barbirolli and Sargent are, you'll miss a couple of jokes. (And you might not also catch the "skeletons on a tin roof" joke from Sir Thomas Beecham.) There's even a tip of the hat to Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, if you look carefully at the music school sign.

The 90 minutes breezed by, and the HD version available on Amazon Prime looked pristine on my iPad. Recommended highly for musical people; and fairly highly for fans of mid-century British comedy. Kenneth Williams alone is worth the price of admission.

I just read three dismal reviews of this film from people with no sense of humor--obviously. Raising The Wind is much more clever than many of the Carry On films or other British comedies from the classic period. Of course, as a former music student, it's possible that I identify with it more than most, but I have shown it to others who laughed as much as I did. Once to an audience of 50, but then a comedy is always better with an audience, at least if it's timing is good, as in this case. When the orchestra ran away (speeded up) as Kenneth Williams attempted to show off his dominance as a great conductor, the audience had hysterics. There was rarely a better cast than this, and the characters are appealing. It's one of those films I wish I could live in. Give it a chance.