Carry On Screaming! (1966)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I watched this movie again yesterday and I still laughed like it was the first time id seen it..Its my all time favorite Carry on with Carry on Cleo being my second favorite..Harry H Corbett and Peter Butterworth are brilliant as the inept coppers, Jim Dale stands out as the boyfriend of one of the girls who is kidnapped, I've never been a fan of Mr Williams but I have to say he does a good job as the villain with his death scene as over the top and really funny as ever .. My only complaint is that I think Sid James should have played the CSI/ scientist instead of John Pertwee and Pertwee could have played an Egor character as another foil to Kenneth Williams. What I think made the film was that they didn't stick to one horror story but bought in and mixture of Frankenstein, Werewolf's and Vampires etc

Desperate,desperate stuff I'm afraid.Only the enchanting Miss Fielding enhances her reputation,making - like Mr Williams before her - the difficult step from Revue to Film Comedy seem sublimely simple.Sadly the comedy is unworthy of her rather strange talents as subtlety is hardly the byword for the "Carry On" series.Not normally a handicap,as most of them involve the participants running round and shouting a lot,but Miss Fielding's forte is in the huskily whispered aside and the slight twitching of an upper lip and in "Cary on Screaming" she is as a beautiful butterfly caught up in a herd of stampeding rhino. And then there's Mr Sid James.Or rather,there isn't.So we get Mr Harry H. Corbett,and good as he was as Harold Steptoe,Mr Corbett is totally anonymous here.Instantly forgettable,when he leaves a scene it is like a hand withdrawn from a bucket of water,he leaves no trace and one is surprised to see him reappear a couple of minutes later. Mr Jim Dale behaves as if his day job is dishing out "Crackerjack" pencils and pens.He has the uncontrolled manic energy of the children's entertainer on daytime TV but none of the talent. Mr Williams, with his bete noir Mr James usually the brightest star in the "Carry On" firmament,is very poor,squealing his lines as if to get the whole thing over as quickly as possible.You get the feeling he would have liked to have arrived on the set with a paper bag over his head to avoid recognition. "Carry on Screaming" has a very bad script,actors who don't appear to believe in what they're doing and generally carries the air of a series that had already gone on too long.Fortunately for its admirers,rumours of its imminent demise proved to be exaggerated,but "Screaming" was definitely a symptom of its mid - life crisis.

My main complaint about this film is the casting. They cast Jim Dale and Angela Douglas who are wonderful together. She appears at the beginning, and at the end, with a short scene in the middle. Why? She is a good actress and very beautiful. Jim Dale is great as always. His girlfriend is kidnapped by Kenneth Williams and his clan. He is the Dracula type and Bernard Bresselaw, who is underused, plays the butler. The others in the castle are not Carry On regulars and I don't really care for them. Peter Butterworth and another guy plays bumbling coppers. There are some good scenes with them and Jim, but there are way too many scenes that don't feature the Carry On regulars. I really like a lot of the Carry On's, but this one misses the mark.

If you only ever watch one Carry On film make sure it's this one. Consistently funny with terrific performances from everyone involved this is guaranteed to make you laugh. The makers have got the period setting spot on for a classic p@!s-take of all those brilliant Hammer films. Talbot Rothwell throws everything into this - a mad scientist, a deliciously evil and beautiful sister, an effective looking monster, a couple of Jeckyll and Hyde transformations, a spooky mansion, fog shrouded woods and a couple of inept coppers in the style of Holmes and Watson. Peter Butterworth has never been better and Harry H Corbett is simply stunning in his only Carry On appearance. Also worthy of mention are Jon Pertwee and Charles Hawtrey despite these two only being on screen for one scene each. The story revolves around missing young women who are being turned into tailors dummies by Kenneth Williams' manic Doctor Watt. Jim Dale tries to persuade Detective Sergeant Bung and his idiotic assistant Slowbottom that his date Doris has been abducted by a hideous monster while they were enjoying a night in Hokum Woods, 'How far did you go?' asks Bung (meaning how far into the woods they went), 'Oh not far I've only known her a year!' says Dale and that sums up the humour, not very intellectual but very very funny, in fact the funniest line comes when Corbett - having stolen the dummy of Doris from a shop while under the influence of one of Watts potions - turns to Jim Dale (number 1 suspect) and says 'I suppose I took it!!'. Every thing in this - the 12th Carry on - hits the mark and along with 'Carry On At Your Convenience' shows a team clearly enjoying themselves and it's a pleasure to watch time and time again. A Classic.