Carry on Columbus

This film is the biggest pile of doosh, it's been my misfortune to endure, I love the carry on films, and because I do, I have problems even accepting this pityful movies exsistence.

Barbara Windsor and Joan Sims did the wise thing and refused to have anything to do with this debarcle. To include so called modern comics such as Rik Mayell, Alexi Sayle etc is an insult to the Carry on name.

A movie HAS to be bad if the normally grotesque Julian Clarey, gives me the only chuckle of the film. The only 'true' Carry on regular in this movie was Jim Dale (and Peter Gilmore at a push). June Whitfield, Leslie Phillips, Jack Douglas & Bernard Cribbins, all made only a handful of appearances in the series, and do themselves no favours appearing in this arsefest. Lets put this into perspective.

Sid James is Dead, Kenneth Williams is Dead, Kenneth Connor is Dead, Charles Hawtrey is Dead, Hattie Jacques is Dead, Peter Butterworth is Dead, Joan Sims is Dead, Barbara Windsor is Dead, Bernard Bresslaw is Dead.

These people WERE the Carry on movies, it was their magic and their comedic timing and delivery that made these films charming. Not because they were 'Carry on Films' but because THEY were in them, and it is the rapport they had as a working team, that made that 'Carry On' magic. This film was nothing more than ghostriding.

And if this movie wasn't damaging enough to the 'Carry On' name, then I'm sure you'll all be sickened to hear that they're planning to make another. I hope more intelligent heads prevail and we are spared such an indignity.

For twenty five years I have carried this film around as a pre-prepared answer to any question which includes the words "worst film". Of course I have seen worse films on TV at strange hours of the afternoon or early morning, but I have neither watched them in their entirety nor handed over my own hard-earned cash to see them. I reserve scores of one out of ten for some of those movies, and this one merits a score of two purely because I did manage to endure it all.

This film is a tragic waste of the talent assembed to produce it. I'm not sure whether it's the script, the editing, the direction or all three which conspired to make it so bad but it's almost an achievement in itself that so many fine comedy actors were employed in pursuit of such a lost cause.

The Carry On franchise was never intended to be thought-provoking but it's irreverence and cheekiness evoked a more innocent time which, while it may not have really been as innocent as it made out, was well and truly over by the time Columbus hit our theatres. Even with those qualities intact it would have been fairly excruciating in 1992, but it wasn't even that good. It isn't so much of an anachronism as an embarrassment and I'll bet there were a few tense conversations between actors and agents in the period following its release.

I've had a real terror fest, I've watched some true horrors, Carry on England, Carry on Emmanuelle and ended with Carry on Columbus. I've said it before, they should have stopped at the brilliant Carry on behind.

It's better then the previous two, but that's not saying much, Carry on for me conjures up Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Bernard Bresslaw and Joan Sims. Four couldn't do it and one had the sense not to. So the film is just lacking what it is to be a Carry of film, I'll give plaudits to Jim Dale for battling hard against the awful script he was given.

I've tried to pick out a good bit, I've tried very hard, but I can't find one in there, it's too forced.

I applaud them for trying to continue the line, and for forming a 'new' batch of British comics, sadly it just didn't quite work. 3/10

The original Carry On series has a certain kitsch charm. They were smutty, low budget attempts to appeal to the masses, which broadly succeeded in putting a smile on the nation's face. Great casts of talented comic actors such as Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Barbara Windsor gave their all to leave a superb record of the humour of the time. Fourteen years after the original series drew to a close, largely because it was no longer relevant to the country, someone got the bright idea to revive the tradition. I can almost hear the smug conversations as the likes of Julian Clary and Rik Mayall decided to undertake what they thought would be a simple project. How miserably they failed. It is an execrable, ill conceived and poorly executed film, the only purpose of which is to illustrate the quality of the originals.

We often bemoan the demise of the British film industry, yet we seem to be almost incapable of turning out any decent films with the resources we have.

The 'Carry Ons' had been wound up - to very little fanfare - nearly fifteen years before Carry On Columbus was released back in 1992. I was in high school then and I remember it vaguely; along with most contemporary audiences at the time, I certainly made no effort to actually watch a Carry On film in the cinema. Followng a dismal run Carry On Columbus soon faded at the box office , and it's only thanks to ITV 4 that I've gotten the chance to occasionally watch it over recent years.

The storyline - a take on Christopher Columbus and The New World, in case you missed the hint - is stale and lifeless. Too many of the performances are forced, and the timing and delivery - always essentially in a Carry On film - just isn't there; if the 'magic' that existed between James, Jacques, Butterworth, Connor, Williams, Windsor, et al (despite whatever else was going on behind the scenes) was spent by 'Emmannuelle' then it was unlikely it was going to be rekindled in the early Nineties - particularly with a group of actors and comedians from a very different background.

This was at the heart of Columbus's failure - the Alternative Comedian of the 1980s was extremely critical (often with good justification) of their 'traditional', 'music hall' or 'old fashioned' predecessors; and when they got their own chance on the silver screen their big shot was yet another Carry On film...it was no wonder they struggled to adapt to the 'seaside postcard' style they'd spent nearly a decade disparaging. By trying to reinvent a sanitised version, and underestimating or misunderstanding the job in hand, the Alternatives surgically removed the essence of what made the series such a success in the first place - even if realities were a bit more hit and miss than the myth suggests. Peter Rogers takes his share of blame as well - if the same formula was well passed its sell by date in 1978 (or 1976 if count 'Dick' as the last decent entry) did he really expect a different result in 1992?

With one or two exemptions (notably Jim Dale and Sara Crowe) most of the cast look all at sea here - and not in the way Colombus would have liked. It says much about low expectations that people can say this is better than the last two or three entries is a plus point - I'd say it was a necessity! Not the worst but it's near the bottom of the league, and one for the completionists only.