Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Carry On Film (Resubmit)
Carry On Film[edit source]
I have made some changes and improved the proceedings. Hope you enjoy it. --OliverKnight 16:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC) I have been instructed to expand on my comments, so here goes.
Firstly, I think the concept needs to be expanded or changed. Just writing about the Carry On movies with double entendres italicised does not seem enough of a concept for the length of the article. So either the whole thing needs to be considerably condensed, or the concept needs to be rethought.
Consider drawing parallels between these movies and Uncyclopedia. Like Uncyclopedia, the mainstay of Carry On humour was innuendo and the sending-up of institutions and customs, such as the National Health Service (Nurse, Doctor, Again Doctor, Matron), the monarchy (Henry), the Empire (Up the Khyber) and the trade unions (At Your Convenience) as well as the Hammer horror film (Screaming), camping (Camping), foreigners (Abroad), the seaside (Girls), and caravanning holidays (Behind) among others. Although the films, like Uncyclopedia articles were very often slated by the critics, they were popular with a select audience which enjoyed the endless regurgitation of jokes that were not very funny to start off with.
Another idea is to take the Carry On movies that were never made, and doing something with that. For example (from reality, of course you can make up ones that are much better):
- What a Carry On... (1961)
The next film after Carry on Regardless, What a Carry On... was to have been set around an amateur dramatics group putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet but but the storyline of Romeo and Juliet was too weak..
- Carry On Smoking (1961)
A fire station, under the command of Sid James, and various attempts to train a bungling group of new recruits. The idea was abandoned because they were afraid the film might suffer if a major disaster occurred on the set.
- Carry On Flying (1962)
A group of RAF recruits crashing planes and screwing WAFs. It got as far as pre-production, but was abandoned. This is probably what inspired the making of the failed Carry On England, which had a similar plot (crashing economies and screwing secretaries).
- Carry On Spaceman (1962)
Lots of possibilities for phallic references.
- Carry On Escaping (1960s or 1970s)
During the Second World War, Talbot Rothwell and Peter Butterworth spent time interned in the same prisoner of war camp. Carry On Escaping was inspired by their experiences there and progressed as far in pre-production as a near-final script, when they discovered that they could not escape.
- Carry On Again Nurse (1979)
More of the same.
- Carry On Dallas (aka Carry On Texas) (1987)
A planned spoof of the then popular US soap Dallas. A full script was written and casting offers made — including Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas, Suzanne Danielle, Joan Sims, Charlie Hawtrey (in a guest role) and Jim Dale. The script centred around the Ramming family (and not Screwing, which was dropped in an early draft as this could have endangered the A certificate). When the 'Who Shot JR' storyline occurred, Dallas became the most watched TV programme in the world at that time. Lorimar then wanted a royalty about 20 times the size of the total budget to use the programme as a base, so the production dried up.
- Carry On Down Under (1988)
This was loosely to have been based on the Neighbours series and its ilk. Location scouting had been carried out by Gerald Thomas, in Australia, but eventually the finance fell through. Essentially, Rogers always liked the script for Carry On Dallas, and so a couple of years later the oil tycoons became sewage farmers and the whole thing shifted to Australia. Thomas had seen some locations there whilst on holiday and spoke to the Australian film commission, which welcomed the idea. The scripts for Carry On Dallas and Carry On Down Under were identical.
You could also think about a concept of drawing parallels between the actors' screen personae and their private lives. For example:
- Bernard Bresslaw cycled between playing the dimwit or the heavy, or the lusty and bombastic "foreigner". In the later films his characterisation developed greater depth, such as in Dick, Behind.
- Hattie Jacques Played the haughty matron or school senior mistress in several films.
- Barbara Windsor played main roles in all her Carry On appearances. Her characters were always the cheeky and saucy young blonde, often in revealing costumes. Sometimes her characters were chaste, some were easily swayed, some had to be chased.
- Patsy Rowlands Started in support roles, often as undervalued, meek and mousey secretary or assistant who undergoes transformation into a more assertive and sexually-aware woman.
- Jack Douglas joined the series with a cameo appearance in Matron where he appears in just one scene and has a single line of dialogue. After an only slightly larger role in the following film Abroad where he again plays his established Alf Ippitimus-type character, his roles increased in size and increasingly diverged from the familiar Alf performance. After his debut Douglas appeared in all subsequent films in the original series, and was one of the few returners for Columbus.
- Julian Holloway played several supporting roles, usually as a laddish' young man.
- Terry Scott played, among others, the put-upon husband (Camping), the barking sergeant (Sergeant, Up the Khyber) and lusty doctor (Matron).
- Valerie Leon always played glamorous roles.
- Kenneth Williams played a range of character types. Early roles were rather strait-laced, he then sometimes played his snide character: quite slimy and smarmy with a whiny voice. Later the haughty, proud and easily outraged character became more frequent and Williams' best-known character type. Williams sometimes played characters of other nationalities, such as in Up the Khyber. In some roles, when not actually playing his role in snide mode, Williams might deliver a single joke using his snide voice.
- Joan Sims had the longest uninterrupted run of roles in Carry On films, being in all 20 films (excluding That's Carry On) from Carry On Cleo to Carry On Emmannuelle. Played a range of characters from jolly and assertive young women with sturdy moral standards (Camping, Loving), to sexy and lusty matrons - either desired (At Your Convenience) or coarse and unattractive (Henry, Up the Khyber), to a chatty glutton (in Matron), and an unattractive spinster (Doctor).
- Charles Hawtrey, essentially played variations on the same theme in all his (varied) roles: the meek, rather effete 'mummy's boy' who could suddenly erupt into riotous behaviour.
- Sid James was often portrayed as a womaniser, something that caused problems in his private life.
- Kenneth Connor often played put-upon men ranging in character from pompous to meek, and often leering.
- Peter Butterworth frequently played major roles in the films, often as a generally benign, unflappable but bumbling assistant or servant unable to see the chaos around him. Unusually for a regular, in some films, such as Again Doctor, Henry and Loving, his role consists of a cameo appearance in a single scene.
This last concept probably needs more research.
Pieface 05:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | A bit of a parson's egg. |
| Concept: | 6 | A parody of a parody. Well, OK. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | Some nice wordplay |
| Images: | 5 | Needs more and better images |
| Miscellaneous: | 5 | It goes on a bit. Maybe cut some of the random humour and other 'fill' |
| Final Score: | 29 | I enjoyed it. I had forgotten about the Carry On movies. |
| Reviewer: | Pieface 09:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC) | |