Carry On England (1976)

Memorable, crazy movie

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

England, 1940: Captain S. Melly (Kenneth Connor) takes charge of an experimental mixed sexes' anti-aircraft base where the troops are more interested in making love than war.Carry On England is missing the presence of many of the series' most familiar faces: Sid James (who died shortly before production), Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Bernard Bresslaw, and Hattie Jacques—just a few of those missing in action.With so many of the old guard absent, this Carry On caper is left with a handful of the more desperate regulars (Windsor Davies, Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth, Jack Douglas) and a whole load of green recruits, all of whom appear to be unfit for service.The newcomers—inexperienced in the ways of the Carry On—struggle to wring any laughs from the extremely weak material, while the veterans either go through the motions (Douglas does his 'whahey!" routine, Butterworth plays a sycophantic sidekick) or bellow their lines to the point where it becomes extremely irritating (yes, Davies, we is looking at you!).In a last ditch attempt to win the war of diminishing returns, Carry On England revolves around sex, even throwing in several pairs of bare breasts, but with such dreadful performances and dire gags on parade, the inevitable result was always destined to be a resounding defeat.

One of my favourite Carry on films. Yes, it is silly but then all the carry on franchise is silly. Kids love them but don't understand the double entendres, adults love them but don't appreciate the silliness. You kind of grow out of them. This one still has me roaring and using quotes out of it 30 years after I roared at it as a kid. Can't say the same for earlier ones. Windsor Davies and Kenneth Connor make a great team. I think it's a shame that it gets the poor reviews it gets just because the old team, Sid James, Charles Hawtry, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Bresslaw to name a few not in it but in the same respect, I only like James Bond starring Roger Moore because that was my era but my partner prefers Sean Connery because that was his era. Horses for courses I say.

At a point when a lot of armies were becoming fully integrated with women taking more active combat roles Carry On England was woefully out of date as the Carry On troupe took on the RAF in its glory days as a subject for satire. This film must have drawn a lot of feminist ire and fire when it came out because it portrayed women both as sex objects and the men and women with nothing else on their minds even as Nazi Germany was perilously close to invading the United Kingdom.Kenneth Connor bellows his way through the role of a new commanding officer taking over a group of RAF ground personnel who staff an anti aircraft gun in a remote part of the country and they've never seen hide nor hair of any Luftwaffe types. In fact this unit is coed with the boys and girls just doing what boys and girls do. The women are headed by Judy Geeson and she's just as interested in kanoodling as the men. Connor tries every wile and stratagem with a most reluctant Sergeant Major Windsor Davies to instill some discipline in the ranks to no avail.A pity that Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, and Kenneth Williams were not available apparently, but I doubt any of them could have saved this one. The series was sputtering to a conclusion with gags that were either forced, unfunny or both.And Carry On England is quite a put down to women.

Back in the mid-1970s, as the 'space race' receded in favour of nostalgia, World War Two became a cultural fixation. There were plenty of popular TV shows ('A Family At War', 'Colditz', 'Dad's Army' etcetera) and movies utilising the era, and it made canny sense for the 'Carry On' writers to capitalise on it. As we know by now, that was the only thing about the resultant 'Carry On England' which the makers got right. Back in the franchise's 1960s heyday, it was the cleverly written saucy banter which, along with the notable stock of character actors, remained the abiding pleasure of a good 'Carry On'. Come the more liberal 1970s, their 1960s brand of 'sauciness' began to look quaint and was replaced by a slightly clammy smuttiness, and so the series lost its innocence. Long adrift from that era of cheekiness, the 'Carry On' movies hit the sandbar and became just more examples of dull, embarrassing 1970s British sex comedies. This one has a drastically reduced core of 'regulars', a completely miscast central couple and third-rate banter. That's 'third rate' for the 'Carry Ons', mind. With a steady eye, one is sometimes taken aback with the quality of the writing. Even amidst the most famous entries, there are some prime examples of wince-inducing lame comedy writing. Well, imagine a whole movie made out of just that stuff, and you have the script of 'England'. How bad is it? I bought 'England's Brit-sex-com contemporary 'Confessions of a Pop Performer' the same week and got more laughs out of it. And that wasn't a very good movie, either. Still, if you're a 'Carry On' completist or an appreciator of bad comedies, then you'll have to sit through this at some stage. To be honest, this is the only movie I've reviewed on IMDb which I didn't finish watching. I got about three quarters of the way through and gave up; and from reading the other reviews here it seems I missed nothing. As has been said; a bad thriller easily becomes a comedy, but a bad comedy is no laughing matter. And 'Colditz' was funnier than this.