Carry On at Your Convenience (1971)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is far from the best Carry on film, Screaming, Cleo and Up the Khyber are much better offerings, but it is a million times better than Carry on England and Emmanuelle. I do agree that Carry on At Your Convenience is not perfect, the plot doesn't always flow as well as it should due to some padding, the pacing could have been much more secure and I wish Hattie Jaques had more to do. Conversely, it looks pretty good, as the photography is decent and the costumes and sets are at least nice to look at. Also the score is quirky enough, and while occasionally smutty a vast majority of the dialogue is funny. In general, the acting isn't too bad either; Sid James and Kenneth Williams especially are a lot of fun, and Joan Sims makes the most of an intentionally bitchy sort of character. So overall, decent if slightly disappointing entry. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Flush with success at a time when British movie comedy was going down the tube,the "Carry On" gang will drive you round the bend with this tale of a strike at a factory making lavatory bowls.There really is no end to the number of toilet gags you can come up with.Add a Works Outing to Brighton and you have the core of "Carry on at your convenience",a worthy addition to the chain (sorry,I promise that's the last one)of brilliant Brit comedies starring many of our most beloved and enduring performers.And this one features the great stage comedienne Miss Renee Houston.....it doesn't get better than this.... Girls with hot pants and kinky boots decorate most scenes,Mr Kenneth Williams is at his very best,Mr Sid James and Miss Joan Sims play a really rather poignant undeclared love scene and Brighton positively glows in glorious 1970s Harrison Marks colour. There are weaknesses amongst the younger members of the cast,but who cares when Sid and Hattie's budgerigar gives them Racing Tips and Mr Hawtrey and Miss Houston - no spring chickens - play Strip Poker in her Boarding House? Hugely underrated,but one of the best of all the "Carry Ons".

The WC Boggs Lavatory factory is the heart of its town but the workforce and management could not be more different. While the managers trial their new slimline bathroom suite, the workforce greet the news that the shop floor tea service has been stopped. Although the workers don't care, the union doesn't like it one bit and, in the usual show of strength call everyone out on a one day strike. Everyone uses the day "off" in different ways but everyone returns with something going on. Meanwhile the CEO is persuaded by his son to take on a large order for bidets with a very short turnaround time.It is interesting to see how the Carry On series changed over the 20-25 or so years that it ran for. Starting out with gentle situation comedies, they moved into bawdy spoofs and then gradually the innuendo and smut took over and gradually more and more of the output became like this film – plot less and heavy in crude, unfunny humour. That is not to say it is without value because there are still people who like the smutty postcards you can buy and those people will probably be wiping tears from their eyes at every joke in this film. Personally I was wiping sleep from my eyes because I found it all quite tiring. There isn't any wit or invention in the innuendo either – the writing is pretty lazy where the better films in the series at least had that going for them.The cast all try hard but it is hard to overlook the fact that many if not all of them deserve better than this. James gurns away like a good 'un but it is a bad sign that his faces are funnier than all his lines put together. Williams and Hawtrey camp their way through the film with good spirits while Sims is a terrible, cackling fishwife type who is the butt (sorry) of many of the smutty jokes. Jacques is wasted while Cope and O'Callaghan's efforts to carry the plot amount to nothing. The plot is rubbish and has no flow to follow. However the only thing I will say in its favour is that the portrayal of a British factory of the period is pretty much spot on. I work with colleagues in a factory who have been there for more than 30 years and they do tell tales of absurd strikes at the time, while most of them still have the same non-PC and sexist humour and attitude on display here.If you like the British sexual "comedies" of the 1970's then I suppose you will find the seaside postcard humour of this film a delight. For me I found it crude and basic, lacking wit or originality with all the jokes signposted like they were motorway junctions.

Well the team have done it again haven't they! What ever possessed them to make a comedy film based around lavatories i'll never know but who cares? Carry On at your Convienience is packed full of fantastically funny gags, there's the usual cast all together causing mischief down in Brighton on the annual works outing: Sid James as foreman Sid Plummer, Hattie Jacques his wife Beattie Plummer, Kenneth Williams as W.C. Boggs, owner of the factory, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw Charles Hawtreyetc. They are joined by newcomers to the series: Richard O Callaghan, who plays Bogg's Son Mr Lewis, Jacki Piper who played Sid and Hattie's daughter Myrtle and of course leader of the strikes at W.C. Boggs & Sons, Kenneth Cope who plays Vic Spanner, they are supported by wonderful comedy actors such as: Renee Houston, Margaret Nolan etc.A wonderful carry On, ready for the next one, hopefully it will be just as funny so CARRY ON!*