The Complete A–Z of Everything Carry On. Richard Webber

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СКАЧАТЬ in February 1963, spotlighting a group of secret agents who penetrate an atomic plant disguised as CND supporters before taking part in a CND demonstration themselves. Rogers rejected the script, but it wouldn’t be the last time Hudis’s work was considered for future Carry Ons.

      1964

      Spying, which launched Barbara Windsor’s Carry On career, was made between 8 February and 13 March and released in June. Within a month of hitting the big screen, the cast were back in period costume, this time in the days of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra for Carry On Cleo, the tenth in the series and Rogers and Thomas’s twenty-first joint production. After completing the action between mid-July and the end of August, the film received its UK release in November. It was well received around the world, especially Australia, where its success was confirmed by various sources, including the managing director of Australia’s Greater Union Theatres, who stated that in most cinemas it had beaten pictures such as Lawrence of Arabia and El Cid, taken more money than any other Carry On and broken numerous box-office records throughout the country.

      1965

      The first draft of Rothwell’s screenplay for Cowboy was completed by March, but after script discussions with Rogers and Thomas, changes were made and a revised screenplay delivered by 11 May, two months before filming took place at Pinewood Studios and on location, with Surrey’s Chobham Common and Buckinghamshire’s Black Park replicating the Wild West. The final wrap was on 17 September, day thirty-nine in the schedule, with the film’s release in November, weeks after Talbot Rothwell typed the final word of his next screenplay, Carry On Screaming!

      1966

      For Screaming!, Fenella Fielding returned for her second and final appearance in a Carry On, playing the vampish Virula Watt; Harry H. Corbett, meanwhile, earned £2000 per week playing Sidney Bung; Rogers was delighted to have Corbett in the cast, an actor he’d wanted to work with for some time. With filming completed by the end of February, Screaming! was a summer release.

      By early autumn, production was under way on Don’t Lose Your Head. It was originally released, as was the next production, Follow That Camel, without the Carry On moniker. When Peter Rogers left Anglo Amalgamated and teamed up with Rank, the new distributors were conscious of releasing future films from Rogers and Thomas under the brand of a competitor. It was only after takings for the two pictures were noticeably lower that the prefix was hastily reinstated.

      Filming for Don’t Lose Your Head took place between 12 September and 1 November and the picture, concerning two aristocrats who rescue their French counterparts from the guillotine during the country’s revolution in the late eighteenth century, was released in time for Christmas.

      1967

      Although he’d become an integral part of seven Carry On films by 1967, the hard-working Sid James was unavailable, due to an earlier heart attack, when it came to casting Follow That Camel. Most of the big players, though, were free to step into period costume for the Foreign Legion adventure. After a run of successful parts, Jim Dale was once again in the thick of the action, this time playing Bo West, in a film based loosely on Percival Christopher Wren’s novel, Beau Geste.

      Rank, the new distributor, wanted an American face in the film, believing it would boost sales across the pond and Phil Silvers, alias Sergeant Bilko, was drafted in. But no longer a huge draw in the States, his inclusion did little for the film’s success Stateside, while the actor’s style and vaudeville background wasn’t compatible with the traditional Carry On make-up.

      Filming began on the 1 May, and in addition to utilising the back lot at Pinewood, the cast travelled, for the first time, beyond the environs of the studio – all the way to the Sussex coast, for location work at Rye and Camber Sands.

      The film was released in September, just as the Carry On gang returned, after twelve films, to the hospital wards. Always a popular theme, Carry On Doctor (made between 11 September and 20 October) boasted the first of two film appearances for Frankie Howerd. With Rogers’ wife, film producer Betty Box, responsible for the successful Doctor films, Peter Rogers sought his spouse’s and John Davis’s (then the chief at Rank) permission to use the title.

      When the film was released in December, Carry On fans were delighted to see the return of Sid James, albeit in a lesser capacity, as bed-bound patient Charlie Roper. After his enforced exclusion from the previous picture, James was recovering from his heart attack and accepted a less strenuous role, which he joked was the easiest he’d performed during his lengthy career.

      1968

      Long-distance location filming was rare in the Carry On world: outside of the immediate vicinity, the furthest the team had travelled was to the Sussex seaside for Follow That Camel. For the next film, Up The Khyber, they were on their travels again – this time to the mountains. But instead of the Himalayas, cold and wet Snowdonia was picked to represent the Khyber Pass. A favourite with both Rogers and Thomas, filming began on 8 April and was completed by the end of May. So realistic was the film’s setting, Rogers and Thomas received letters from war veterans convinced they recognised locations at which they’d served.

      There was a September release for Up The Khyber and an autumn shooting schedule (7 October-22 November) for Carry On Camping, another favourite of Rogers and Thomas – and millions of fans, too. It’s become common knowledge that the adventures under canvas weren’t filmed in the holiday season but October and November in the grounds of Pinewood. While the cast shivered in their summer gear, the mud was sprayed green to represent grass. Despite such hardships, the team – which included Barbara Windsor and her famous flying bikini top – turned out one of their best overall performances.

      The script, once again, was supplied by Tolly Rothwell, although he’d originally embarked on a Camping script back in 1966, before it was postponed in favour of Follow That Camel.

      1969

      Camping was released in February and followed quickly by Again Doctor, the last time we’d see Jim Dale in a Carry On before the critically slated Columbus, some twenty-three years later.

      Rothwell’s draft script wasn’t entirely satisfactory so he rewrote it and delivered the amended version by the end of January. The screenplay raised a few questions from Rank’s legal adviser, Hugh J. Parton, who, realising Rothwell had written a rejected Doctor in Clover script for Betty Box, queried whether much of Frederick Carver’s dialogue was so reminiscent of Sir Lancelot Spratt (portrayed by James Robertson Justice in the Doctor films) that it was an intended parody. Concern was also expressed over the Medical Mission and slimming cure sequences, which Parton thought he’d read before, perhaps in Rothwell’s Clover script or in one of author Richard Gordon’s books. Worried about copyright infringement, he raised the points with Rogers in February.

      Filming began on 17 March and continued until the beginning of May, shooting on F, C and G stages at Pinewood, with location work in Maidenhead. It was released in August, by which time Rothwell had nearly finished Up the Jungle, which carried a working title of Carry On Jungle Boy. When Dale declined the chance to play Jungle Boy, the part was offered to Terry Scott, while Jacki Piper became the first performer to be placed on contract by Rogers and Thomas. Making her debut as Joan Sims’s assistant, June, in the film, she’d appear in Loving and At Your Convenience before a cameo role in Matron. Howerd was back for his final Carry On, which was shot between 13 October and 24 November.

      1970

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