Les cinglés partent en safari

An okay film, not that funny really other than how you just can't believe what they could get away with back then. There isn't so much a story but a series of scenes, in typical fashion at one point everyone ends up in the wrong bed and so on. The film begins in the jungle mostly with a series of gags about the men and even a gorilla trying to catch a sight of the women on the expedition taking a shower. It's also introduced that there's some Tarzan like man who walks around in a giant nappy unable to speak any English. More misunderstandings and jealousy ensues. All this takes about 45 minutes to happen and the jokes are pretty laboured and just keep going on too long. The production design is pretty basic but that just adds to the comedy. The group are taken captive by a nearby tribe who want to put them all in their village cooking pot but are then rescheduled by some scantily clad young women from another nearby village. Things go on a bit longer and then it all kind of ends happily for everyone. The film has a few funny bits but misses lots of the comedy from Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Williams. Perhaps these went on a little too long. Still the fact they were willing to have some fun and do some of the things they did in this film is feels pretty fresh today. Again this isn't supposed to be anything other than a comedy.

This (surprisingly) consistently funny spoof of the Tarzan jungle epics from the "Carry On" gang is one of their better efforts I've watched so far: the rude, crude jokes come flying by with a welcome regularity and the old reliables - Sidney James (as boozing big game hunter Bill Boosey), Joan Sims (as an aristocratic lady who lost her husband and son in Africa many years earlier) and Charles Hawtrey (as the latter's husband who has spent his time in Africa lording it over a bevy of jungle girls) - enter gleefully into the spirit of the thing; the same goes for occasional participants in the series who join them here like Frankie Howerd (as the improbable leader of the expedition), Kenneth Connor (as a lecherous botanist) and Bernard Bresslaw (as the native guide).

Among the comic highlights are a snake sliding into Ms. Sims' undergarments at dinner-time (which she mistakes for the attentions of each of her male pretenders), the various bedtime romps which also involve Sims' son (the Tarzan figure) and a huge gorilla, James' shotgun 'standing up' at attention on seeing Sims taking a bath, Tarzan's various catastrophic attempts at leaping from one tree to another, his learning the English language and numeric system (which invariably stops at number 6, since he mistakes it for 'sex'), etc. The second half with Hawtrey sags slightly and the luscious Valerie Leon is not put to best advantage; amusingly, during this section, whenever our heroes are in peril, a classic musical cue from the 1960s "Spider-Man" animated series is heard on the soundtrack! All in all, as I said earlier, the result is generally engaging and quite enjoyable.

Speaking to an audience of keen bird watchers, Professor Ingio Tinkle tells the story of his latest exhibition into the African jungle. Part of a party led by adventurer Bill Boosey, Tinkle and his colleagues (including Lady Bagley and her maid) are on their quest to find the Oozalum bird when they come under threat from a ruthless tribe and their guides refuse to continue with them. However things become more complicated when the group are discovered by a man of the jungle who was raised by monkeys and has never seen other men (or women!) before.

As one would expect with a Carry On film, this is full of innuendo, sexist and occasionally racist humour with a very vague plot to set it all within. Needless to say this film continues the trend and it isn't long before the plot (something about finding the Oozalum bird) is lost in a sea of bed swapping, mistaken partners and innuendo. For fans it is funny but it is nowhere near the best of the series as none of it is really that clever – most of the gags are obvious and, although amusing, few made me laugh out loud and they didn't feel like there was any inspiration behind them. Modern audiences may find the sexist stuff a bit uncomfortable but to be honest, what did you expect from a Carry On film? There is a touch of racism although this too can be forgiven as a product of the period – although it is not as direct as you'd think, instead it is implied by the rubber lipped tribesmen and the fact that only white people are allowed to speak (the main 'black' character is Bresslaw!) or by having the women tribe be mostly white or light skinned – because 1970's audiences weren't ready for the sight of a white man having sex with a black woman (even implied). However the one racial joke I thought was clever was Sid James wondering why the same guide gets accidentally shot every time (the point being that it isn't the same one!).

The cast feature most of the regulars who are good enough comedians to be able to work with even this average material. Sid James does his usual stuff; Howerd has some very nice lines that hint at his sexual orientation although Connor is a bit flat when viewed next to him. Terry Scott is OK but has the least role of the film (although it is amusing that he stars with a character called June). The women have the usual short stick but both Sims and Piper are quite good. Hawtrey is funny in a late role that also plays with this physical appearance and sexual orientation. Bresslaw is stuck in yet another 'black face' role – why he is always picked I don't know. The support cast are mostly black clichés but, even 25 years on the Lubi tribe look very, very sexy!

Overall this is pretty much par for the course for Carry On films and it will only really please fans. The broad humour lacks actual wit even if it is funny in a crude fashion but it is far from being consistently funny and it is fairly average as the series goes. Those in the mood for this type of humour will enjoy it but the humour is too broad and too badly structured to really be funny or witty.

The jokes keep coming, in true Carry On fashion, and most of them stand the test of time, even after all these years.

Loads of great moments. Joan Sims's performance as Lady Bagley is particularly memorable in the sequence where she gets a snake up her dress. Plenty of Carry On knob-gags, a wonderful mating ritual (Tonka! Tonka! Stick it up your honka!), and lots of lovely ladies.

Frankie Howerd is on fine form, camping it up like nobody's business. Sid guffaws his way through the proceedings and, more than halfway through, there's a whole new lease of life with the sudden and unexpected appearance of Charlie Hawtrey. Even Terry Scott's aggravating and not-particularly-funny Jungle Boy doesn't grate too much, as the whole film is full of such energy and fun that he barely even registers.

One of the very best of the Carry Ons. Some people may not feel this is a glowing compliment!

The African jungle, and Lady Bagley is part of an expedition to hopefully find her long lost son who disappeared years before, along with her thought to be dead husband. However this is no ordinary trip, Professor Tinkle is searching for the rare Oozalum bird and expedition leader William Boosey well and truly lives up to his surname. Not only are there problems in the camp, outside is numerous other dangers. Wild beasts, wild men and tribes unheard of by human ears before.

1970 saw the Carry On team begin the decade with one of the better offerings in the franchise. Boosted by the returning Frankie Howerd and Terry Scott to join Messrs James, Hawtrey, Sims, Connor and Bresslaw, Carry On Up The Jungle sticks close to the cheeky formula that had worked in the better series entries previously (think Carry On Up The Kyber from 1968). Originally intended to be called Carry On Tarzan (the idea was scrapped for legal reasons), "Jungle" plonks a load of British odd balls in the jungle and invite us to observe how they cope. Which of course we know is not going to be very well at all. Terry Scott steals the film as a blundering Tarzan type (a role apparently turned down by Jim Dale), whilst Howerd and James get maximum humour from their polar opposite characters.

With a simple plot and carrying the series innuendo trademarks on its snake bitten ... ahem, Carry On Up the Jungle is a charmingly funny series entry. 7/10