Carry On Jack
On a Tidal Wave of Hilarity!
The 8th film in the series is the first of seven historical parodies. Carry On Jack is set in the middle part of the Napoleonic wars and follows Albert Poopdecker, (Bernard Cribbins), a Wannabe midshipman who is promoted to work as an officer on HMS Venus. Though the night before he’s due to set sail, he mixes his clothes up with a maid named Sally, (Juliet Mills), who wants to travel to Spain in order to find her long lost love. This leads to a swashbuckling adventure filled with crazy yarns, mistaken identities and a good dose of double entendre.
Kenneth Williams gives one of his funniest performances as the ironically named Captain Fearless, who quite frankly is anything but. The costume design and wardrobe really are exceptional for a low-budget British film of this time. As a whole ‘Jack’ feels more like an over-the-top parody of Mutiny on the Bounty, than a Carry On film, the humour is a lot darker than the usual light-hearted and politically incorrect laughs. Apart from Williams, there are just two small cameo appearances from Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale in the first 10 minutes, none of the regular Carry-on-Gang appears in the film, which is a great pity, this film could have been so much more, such a shame.
5/10 – Calum Roberts