Carry On Emmannuelle
The eternal question for true Carry-on Fans is “why oh why did they make this film!” This, the 30th Carry on film is not only the worst and quite frankly most incompetent film in the series, it’s also one of the worst comedies I’ve ever seen, period. Now that may seem a bit hard of me, to immediately dig into this film, in the way I have, but this penultimate instalment of the Carry On series is quiet simply unpleasant, unfunny and repugnant. What in God’s name were Rodgers and Thomas thinking of trying to make a spoof of a series of soft-core porn films, that were all rated 18.
The Carry On films were far too gentle a source of material to ever make something just for adults. Ostensibly the whole series was for families, from Grandma’s through to children, sure they were occasionally saucy, but never raunchy and definitely not sexually explicit. As a massive Carry-on fan this film just feels uncomfortable and really painful to watch. It is a tragic end to the Carry-on careers of the remaining cast members including Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth and Kenneth Williams.
Anyway, this is a film review and I am a film critic, so I suppose I had better discuss the plot. The story follows Emmannuelle Prevert (Suzanne Danielle), the wife of a French ambassador to London Emile Prevert (Kenneth Williams), who’s boredom and frustration turns her into a promiscuous loose cannon who will do anything to seek attention including enraging her husband’s aids. Then suddenly after just over an hour and twenty minutes of going nowhere, the film ends abruptly. Usually I try to find positives in really terrible films, which is hard but I try to do my best because it’s not easy to make a film. It takes a lot of time and a hell of a lot of money and patience and if you’re just sitting there watching another person’s piece of work and deliberately trashing it, then you have no respect for the craft or industry. That said, you also have to be honest about what you think about a film and with this one, I couldn’t find anything positive to say other than the fact that Rodgers and Thomas tried something completely new and risque, which totally backfired.
1/10 – Calum Roberts