"Carry On Camping" (1969) (Carry On Camping (DVD))

Member Name: jbsabbath

Product:	Carry On Camping (DVD)
Date:	17/08/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Terry Scott and Betty Marsden are brilliant!

Disadvantages: Sketch-based, characters don't mingle enough, the ridiculous finale!

or: "Let Sleeping Bags Lie".

Just when everything was going so well, I go and watch "Carry On Again Doctor" and "Carry On Camping" in the wrong order - oh the misery!

"Carry On Camping" is the *seventeenth* Carry On misadventure in the long-running series directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers, and it's here where everything starts to get a bit rude.

"I met this chap who'd just come back from Scotland and his wife was ravished by a wild haggis, and now they're expecting a little faggot!"

Trying to get their new girlfriends 'in the mood', Sid Boggle (Sid James) and Bernie Lug (Bernard Bresslaw) take Joan Fussey (Joan Sims) and Anthea Meeks (Dilys Laye) to the local cineplex to watch a documentary on nudist camping.

Unsurprisingly the girls are appalled, but the lads go off to organise the holiday anyway.

Meanwhile, unloved and terribly bored-with-camping husband Peter Potter (Terry Scott) is ignored by his wife Harriet (Betty Marsden) and is forced to stick the tent up once more, rather than going to the sunny riviera and enjoying the luxuries of a five-star hotel.

Along the way they meet up with the totally inept camper Charlie Muggins (Charles Hawtrey) and hilarity ensues when Peter's wife decides to let him share the tent!

Arriving from Chaste Place, a finishing school for young ladies, is a plethora of young beauties headed by the saucy Babs (Barbara Windsor), organised and 'controlled' by Dr Soper (Kenneth Williams) and Miss Haggerd (Hattie Jacques).

They're all heading to Mr. Fiddler's (Peter Butterworth's) Paradise Camp, and a lot of eyeing up and tent-swapping's about to happen, only when they're interrupted by a massive hippie shindig in the next field!

"She's been showing me how to stick the pole up!"

The Carry On series progressively goes through three stages of naughtiness as the times change, from being embarrassed by skirt, to chasing skirt, to getting skirt, and "Carry On Camping" is when we well and truly reach the second phase.

For all its crass humour and wealth of innuendo, there's hardly any of *it* actually going on, and you never get to see any, so no wonder these films can be enjoyed by old and young alike - I was watching these when I was ten!

Heading the cheeky side of things, and a hundred miles away from the young naive dim-witted blonde she played in "Carry On Spying" is Barbara Windsor, as the self-titled Babs, who plays the ring-leader of all the naughty girls from Chaste Place, although acting like a nice girl when Dr Soper and Miss Haggerd are around.

Here she plays a right little brawler, cat-fighting and arguing, winking at every guy she passes, until eventually we get the scene that defines the film when, during morning exercises, her bra flies off!

Windsor is hilarious in this film and I was surprised how 'game' her character was supposed to be, but I guess this was '69.

Chasing after her and the girls, after arriving at Mr. Fiddler's camp by mistake instead of the nudist camp, is Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw as Sid and Bernie.

As you can see, Talbot Rothwell who's been writing the scripts seems to have dried up with inventing new character names.

Sid James is in his signature role as the dirty older man chasing after the ladies, cackling his 'Hya hya hya!' at the right moments, while Bernard Bresslaw plays his more nervous and innocent sidekick but still getting in his wide-eyed trademark 'Coooor!' once and awhile.

Out of their small troop, Joan Sims (as Joan) is probably the best of the lot, playing the untrusting wife (even though she isn't) perfectly, keeping an eye open on her boyfriend's activities at every turn.

Not so in the limelight when surrounded by these Carry On heavyweights is Dilys Laye as Bernie's girlfriend Anthea, who's suitably travel sick and Joan's extra pair of eyes.

This would be Laye's fourth and final film in the series, moving mainly into television for the rest of her career - sadly she passed away earlier this year in February.

Perhaps the most amusing of the small groups is that of the Potters, Peter and Harriet, played by Terry Scott and Betty Marsden.

After Scott's fantastic performance in "...Up the Khyber", we really get to see how malleable his face actually is as he manages to gurn at every opportunity - completely overacting but playing it perfectly for a Carry On - which is fantastic alongside his on-screen wife played by Marsden.

Marsden plays camping lover Harriet Potter who has the most ridiculous laugh I've ever heard, a variation of a horse's whinnie I shouldn't wonder, which is suitably loud and annoying to get on her husband's nerves!

Riding the tandem bike together, they're probably the most ludicrous and believable pair at the camp site.

On the way they meet Charlie Muggins, played by Charles Hawtrey, who's out on his first camping holiday by himself, and he's quite rubbish at it.

His first scene, caught 'tickling' a young shop assistant inside a tent before being caught by the manager, signals the way the film is going!

Hawtrey is his usual self here and does his best to steal scenes, but up against Terry Scott it's surprisingly an uphill struggle.

Having their own problems, meanwhile, are Dr. Soper (Kenneth Williams) and Miss Haggerd (Hattie Jacques), both of which are struggling to keep the girls in their charge under control.

However, with Babs pulling pranks behind the scenes, Haggerd believes Dr. Soper is coming onto her, which is far from the truth, so as in "Carry On Doctor" we get the horny Matron scrambling after Kenneth Williams as he desperately tries to get away!

Jacques and Williams are their brilliant selves, and it's just a shame that they don't get to interact more with the other characters at the camp.

In fact, this is true of everyone - the film could really have done with some more mingling!

"Of course it's very easy to get it up, it's getting it to stay up, that's what counts!" (about tents supposedly)

"Carry On Camping" is a tightly scripted effort that harkens back to the old films where a number of different characters are all thrown into the same situation and we see the disaster unfold - it works very well here as all of the facets of camping are explored, from asking for milk from the nearby farmer, to setting up your tent in a field with a bull, to putting up your tent in the pouring rain.

Ah, so many memories!

But kudos must go to the hardy cast who had to film it all in a freezing English Spring, and there are stories about sticking leaves back on the trees and spraypainting the muddy fields green.

"Carry On Camping" is a very funny film, and it is enjoyable, but as with the older films it does feel quite sketch based, especially when the characters don't come together - they mainly keep to their small groups throughout the entire film, and the ousting of the hippies at the end is just ridiculous.

It's rude and all good fun, but since all the characters seem to be 'arfter the same thing, it feels like the innocence has been lost, and with it part of the charm of the series.

[The DVD can be purchased from play.com for £3.99 (including postage and packing). It can also be purchased as part of a collection, also including "...Again Doctor", "...Up the Jungle" and "...Henry", the fifth four in the series, for £7.99 (at time of writing)]

Summary: Fun bra-popping entertainment from the Carry On crowd!