Carry on Behind

I don't understand why this has such a low rating. I know some consider it a poor remake of Camping, but I think it is far from it. I've always thought it to be one of the best. It's such a shame that they followed up with England, Emmanuelle, and Columbus; had they ended here, I think 'Behind' would have been held in much higher regard.

There are some truly funny gags, fun performances, and great double acts: Windsor Davies and Jack Douglas, Kenneth Williams and Elke Sommer, Peter Butterworth and Joan Sims. These were great comedy teams. Elke especially did a great job; it was her first Carry On, and she was just splendid-likable, funny, with great delivery and a cheeky smile.

There are some truly funny moments: Peter Butterworth trying to coax Kenneth and Elke to hire his caravan, Elke looking for scrubbers, the striptease-lots to choose from.

Even the theme music makes me laugh; it's such a cheeky and funny tune-perfect for the film.

I've always loved the way that shower door suddenly developed a glass panel at the top, that caravan site really was advanced!

9/10.

I don't laugh easily, haven't particularly liked British films, or lowbrow humor. But this flick had me in stitches 15 year ago. I remember a rapid succession of scabrous double entendres and sexual innuendo. It was so unrelentingly silly I felt mercilessly tickled. I wish I could say I became a fan of the Carry On series. But few other instalments amused me so much. Yet the gang is VERY talented and appealing and offers an exceedingly gentle sort of imbecility, totally unlike American low-brow, which is rather vicious. This series threatens to make an Anglophile out of me, AGAIN!

Carry On Behind is dismissed by some fans of the series as an inferior imitation of Carry On Camping, a crass caper that desperately tries to keep up with the times by offering viewers an endless tirade of even more risqué innuendo, crude toilet humour and gratuitous female nudity (bums and boobs, but no bush). I don't understand the criticism: in my opinion, that sounds like the recipe for a whole lot of fun!

Sid James and Babs Windsor might not be along for the ride this time around (they were busy working abroad), and Charles Hawtree is also notable by his absence, but even without these stalwarts of the series, I had a great time: Carry On regulars Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Liz Fraser, Patsy Rowlands, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth and Jack Douglas ably represent the old guard, while new faces include TV talent Windsor Davies (It Ain't Half Hot Mum) and Ian Lavender (Dad's Army), sexy German actress Elke Sommer, and dolly bird Adrienne Posta (Adventures of a Taxi Driver/Adventures of a Private Eye).

Between them they deliver the goods: Williams falls in a cesspit, Sommer takes a shower and flashes her butt, desperate middle-aged married men Davies and Douglas lust after bikini babes Carol Hawkins and Sherrie Hewson (of Coronation Street fame), Bresslaw goes in search of a foul-beaked Mynah bird, Posta wears a preposterous blonde wig (surely that wasn't her real hair?), Butterworth gets romantic with Sims, and Connor accidentally books a stripper for his caravan camp cabaret act! It might no be all that sophisticated, but its good for some guffaws and a fair few 'phwoars'.

It's a retread of Carry On Camping only with caravans as the usual array of characters ripe for fun picking innuendo laden shenanigans. Plot for what it's worth has a bunch of Carry On holidaymakers caravanning next to a Roman excavation site being run by Prof Anna Vrooshka (Elke Sommer) and Prof. Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams). Chaos inevitable ensues.

The absence of Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques and Terry Scott was always going to be felt (they had all left the franchise by this time), but Williams, Bernard Bresslaw , Kenneth Connor, Joan Simms and Peter Butterworth plough on stoically with the thin formulaic screenplay. Windsor Davis supplements them but he's no Sid James.

The series would trundle out two more films in the 70s before the ill advised comeback movie in 1992 (Carry on Columbus), one of which was the dreadful Carry on England. "Behind" isn't an awful movie as it does have its moments, such as the by-play between Sommer and Williams, and Bresslaw's henpecked husband act. It's also a very good snapshot of the era with budget holidays pointing to the unsteady political climate, while the sexual aspects reek of a time well left behind – but those attitudes did exist back then.

Passable Carry On fare but carrying with it the sadness in knowing the series was long past its sell by date. 6/10

Ah, c'mon..! We *know* it's not a patch on Carry on up the Khyber and Carry on Cleo but it's still fantastic in it's own rubbish way. The whole universe of cuckolded, horny husbands, shrewish wives and anaemic-looking dolly birds still makes me laugh my ass off every time.

You can see the gags coming from a thousand yards away and the plot's wafer thin but Kenneth Williams cackles like a champ, Kenneth Connor sleazes for England and Elke Sommer still looks fantastic in that cheeky suede skirt.

I grew up with the Carry On films and watching one is like opening a can of Instant Nostalgia. I studied archaeology at university and people always ask me if I was inspired by Indiana Jones. I've got a sneaky suspicion it was really Carry on Behind.