Carry on Henry

For most spoofs, the holy grail is to make so ridiculous the subject of attack that it will be impossible to take it seriously again. AIRPLANE! achieved this with the AIRPORT series, admittedly an easy target. CARRY ON HENRY may not have had quite the same effect - such is the unshakeable British obsession with the past, one of the film's main targets - but it's always nice to see that someone else found A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and THE LION IN WINTER to be pompous tripe as well.

HENRY, like CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, is an example of a modest franchise miraculously finding an appropriate subject and creating a work of art. It may lack the jawdropping Bunuellian genius of KHYBER, but it has its own juicy pleasures. The jokes are franker than were usual at this point, but clever rather than crude, and funny when they were crude.

This is also the last time the cast would be as brilliant as this - a well-oiled machine perfectly in control of the material. Kenneth Williams is aptly, hilariously Machiavellian; Charles Hawtrey is endearingly inappropriate as the brave knight and lover who undergoes all sorts of horrible tortures for his Queen - the heterosexual potency of these obviously gay stars are an uproarious counterpoint to the macho King's unsuccessful promiscuity. Joan Sims is glorious as ever as the ample, lascivious, French, garlic-obsessed Queen. But it is the godlike Sid James who rightly walks away with the film, cinema's best ever King Henry. The merging of his usual persona - the chuckling lecher who is repeatedly thwarted in his amorous endeavours (itself a remarkable comment of tyranny throughout the ages), married to a sex-mad woman he can't abide - with the portrayal of an historical icon creates satire of great depth.

Whereas the aforementined, Oscar-garlanded pageants are rigidly respectful of English history, HENRY is breezily sceptical. Rather than search for continuity with the past, or examine various notions of Englishness, HENRY is very modern in its rejection of a certain kind of history, the meticulous reconstruction of a mythic past that can teach us about the present. HENRY knows that the past can only be viewed through the prism of the present, that history is a fluid, ever vanishing, entity, always reinterpreted to each generation's needs. The film quite clearly sets out its stall of bogusnes - it is based on recently discovered documents by William Cobbler - only to show how unreliable our grasp of history is; how it's always told in somebody's vested interests, at the expense of someone else.

The film therefore prefigures the awesome Monty Python deconstructions of the 70s, with jokes about the Labour government, and with King's wenches who demand payment before favours, and whose fathers complain about taxation. The reduction here of English history to an aristorcratic bedroom farce is a more profound insight than any 'serious' epic has ever managed.

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.

This is a fabulously funny send up of history and the Carry on cast are in great form. Leading the fun is Sid James who plays Sid James playing Henry. Sid always played Sid and when he was in top form as a lovable rogue or old lecherous womaniser few could be better. He is wonderful here and I agree with others here who say the old boy was born to play this part. It is his movie but he does get great support. The great stalwarts are there Williams, Hawtrey and Sims. There's lovely work from Terry Scott. A real stand out is a brilliant cameo from an actor I know little about. Julian Orchard is brilliant and he camps it up deliciously.What a superb actor this man is, must read more about him. He had me in stitches. I normally found Kenneth Connor annoying but in this he shows he was actually a good actor when he was not stuck playing annoying mannerisms and clichés. His slap stick in other movies is awful and unfunny, here is restrained and good to watch. The carry on movies are attacked because they objectify women and are not politically correct. Not so. If you look at the movies very carefully surely it's at least commendable that the sexy women are not the anorexic women cast as sex idols today. Barbara Windsor is superb in this. She always was. She is certainly sexy but she was a full rounded, buxom woman with womanly features. She was not a match stick. The carry on movies are never given credit for this.Today anorexia is rife amongst young women and the carry on movies showed that you do not have to be slim to be sexy. Windsor was and even today is sexy. A glamorous great star.

The gag of the garlic does not work today because this was made at a time when garlic was not something popular with the conservative English diet. Today we have all developed a love and taste for garlic. Back then it was exotic and most people, including those who never tried it, hated it.It was odd continental stuff and it stunk. We are all over that now. Garlic actually smells quite sexy, especially if you both are eating it. We also know its very good for you, natrures medicine. It was never eaten here in Australia until Italians immigrated. So its odd to us today to quite connect with the attitude that garlic was something horrible. Henry is however a classic Carry On and I loved it. The pace of the movie is zesty and crackles along brightly. It looks great with lovely costumes and sets. The music is wonderful. Its one of the best. I loved it.

The 21st film of the long running Carry On series is a bawdy trip into the court of King Henry VIII (Sid James). The King has recently married Queen Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims) but since she eats too much garlic, thus putting the King off his conjugal rights, he plots to get her out the way. However, he must tread carefully as a war with France could easily arise should anything happen to the Queen.

Some of the best colour Carry On movies would turn out to be set in an historical period. Carry On Henry is not one of the best from the historical romps, but it's a goodie and for those who like the saucy side of the series then it has plenty of appeal.

The presence of James on womanising and boozing form, and Barbara Windsor doing her no brain all sexuality act, gives this entry its saucy soul, while Terry Scott (superb visual ticks), Kenny Williams (a continuously wonderful foil for Scott) and Charles Hawtrey mince about with gleeful abandon. The energy of the comedy is high and sustained throughout, while the art design and costuming is regal in production. The gunpowder plot forms a side-bar narrative, which is joyous but also shows us that Kenneth Connor is sadly under used, but the innuendo and purposely groan inducing gags are always on hand to tickle the senses of those so inclined towards this splinter of the popular British institution. 7/10

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.