Carry On Girls

The 25th Carry On film produced by Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas was the first Carry On in the series to star neither Kenneth Williams nor Charles Hawtry, which is strange as both of them were probably the most frequent stars of the entire series. Carry on Girls is set in the seaside town of Fircombe, which looks like a mix of Lyme Regis and an early 1970’s Brighton. The town isn’t receiving anywhere near the funding it needs to pay for a refurbishment, so councillor Sidney Filler (Sid James) bullies the prudishly smug mayor Frederick Bumble (Kenneth Connor) into putting on a beauty pageant in the town to raise funds. An idea which strongly attracts journalists and photographers around the country including Peter Potter (Bernard Bresslaw), who’s looking to boost the publicity of Fircombe.

If you take out the beauty contest being set in a seaside town and Barbara Windsor cat-fighting another girl on a donkey, (which sounds weird, even by today’s standard), then every laugh feels as it was already conducted better maybe two, three, four or even five films ago. If you’ve never seen any of the other Carry On’s or you’re just looking for something to have on in the background whilst eating tea or working on a project, but you aren’t looking for something to watch too closely, then I suppose this is worth a go.

For me this is the point in the series where the classic Carry On film was coming to an end, (With Abroad being the last truly memorable film in the series, or at least memorable in a good way). While this film isn’t terrible or particularly boring, it feels that even at the time it was made, it was already old and stale.

5/10 – Calum Robert