Manda Ver, Henry

RANKING: Just in the top ten but lacks some of the originality and sparkle the better ones have. Unlike the ones which followed, this one had actually had a budget and looks pretty polished.

TYPICAL: Perhaps this one is too typical. It's one of the later historical pictures and it does feel a little like they're doing the same thing as before but this time with different costumes on.....but the same old thing is still funny! Sid James is fabulous as King Henry - giving possibly one of the greatest portrayals of Henry in movie history (who are we to know?). Whether or not this is a classic Carry On, it's certainly classic Sid James.

Apart from Jim Dale, who'd left the team by now, virtually everyone else is in this all playing their expected roles. As for the story - it's pretty weak but because they all seem to be enjoying themselves, we do too.

SEXY LADIES: That essential Carry On ingredient in this is provided by Barbara Windsor who is pretty sweet and cute in this one.

This account of Henry VIII 's marital problems covers an area of history that isn't in the history books, his marriage with garlic munching Marie de Normandy ( the excellent Joan Sims) and Queen Bettina ( the late great Barbara Windsor) has never been revealed untill now. This funny carry on romp also stars Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell, and Terry Scott as cardinal wolsey, Charles Hawtrey as a knight (!) and lover of Queen Marie and Kenneth Connors. It's bawdiness is quite frank, but its not overly crude and the one liners are well written and quipped by the Carry on team. It's enjoyable from beginning to end - the sets and costumes come across authentic. The torture sequence with Hawtrey getting a stretch for a confession and the confession getting ripped up by Henry is hilarious.

Like a well-oiled machine fully in control of the material, Carry On Henry is the typical knockabout affair you've come to expect from this franchise, offering the familiar mix of bawdy humour and slapstick, sadly, you can sense the charm slowly draining away from the series. There are corny gags galore but very little in terms of comedic momentum; it simply trundles along. However, there's much to-ing and froing around the king's devious plotting, tight-fitting bodices and Sid James truly working his end, wringing every drop of humour from a great script. It certainly helps that this is another of the more visually impressive films of the series, despite being made on a minuscule budget typically afforded to the team; it looks stunning, thanks to some well-crafted art direction and costume work, achieving an authentic recreation of the court of England's most notorious monarch, all sumptuously staged. In many ways, Carry On Henry sees a reduction of English history to an aristocratic bedroom farce, but it's still got plenty of laughs from a cast who are giving it their all, it may be fast and loose with its history but that's always been the Carry On way.

Not the best of the carry on films but not the worst either, Sid James and Barbara Windsor still have a lot of chemistry and there's lots of references to the Tudors here (even if some are a bit out of place like Guy Fawkes and the guillotine!) It's not that memorable and I found myself a bit bored whilst watching it, but there's worse films and it's ok.

5/10: Average.

An unofficial tale about Henry VIII's two brief marriages between Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

The usual crude humour of the series is reasonably neglected in preference of real wit and poignancy, the acting shows unexpected sophistication, the dialogue sharp, and even the period detail seems stimulatingly accurate in this surprisingly effective travesty of "Anne of the Thousand Days", "Lion in Winter", "A Man for All Seasons" and other British historical sagas. One of the best efforts of all concerned.