Carry On Loving ** (1970, Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams) – Classic Movie Review 1211

Sid James and Hattie Jacques usher in the new Seventies era in director Gerald Thomas’s 1970 Carry On comedy Carry On Loving by playing Sidney Bliss and his longtime girlfriend Sophie Plummett, who run a computer-dating marriage bureau called The Wedded Bliss Marriage Agency.

As usual, lascivious Sid has his eye on Joan Sims, playing sexy client Esme Crowfoot, who vamps James by pretending to love Kenneth Williams as Percival Snooper, who in turn is loved by his housekeeper (Patsy Rowlands). Charles Hawtrey plays a rather unusual private detective, James Bedsop, hired by Sophie to spy on Sid’s after-hours activities.

Sadly, the series was in decline, with Talbot Rothwell’s script just a chain of off-colour sex gags loosely connected, even more open bawdy than before. A phone box boasts the smuttily ambiguous legend: ‘Please be quick, others may be waiting for it’!  The locations named for their silly sexual innuendo, including ‘Much-Snogging-On-The-Green’, ‘Rogerham Mansions’ and ‘Dunham Road’. But, happily, the delightful vintage cast carry on regardless.

Quality-wise the series may have been in decline, but hardly popularity-wise. It was the fourth most popular movie at the British box office in 1971.

Bernard Bresslaw is Gripper Burke, Terry Scott is Terence Philpot, Richard O’Callaghan (in his first Carry On) is Bertrum Muffet and Peter Butterworth has an uncredited cameo as the Sinister Client. Imogen Hassall has her only Carry On role and Jacki Piper her second. Patsy Rowlands, Julian Holloway, Joan Hickson (as Mrs Grubb), Bill Maynard (as Mr Dreery), Bill Pertwee (Barman) and Kenny Lynch (Bus Conductor) also appear, with Philip Stone, Hilda Barry, Ann Way, Gordon Richardson, Tom Clegg, Anna Karen, Fred Griffiths and Alexandra Dane.

The corner of Park Street and Sheet Street at Windsor, Berkshire, was used for the Wedded Bliss Agency, previously used for the Helping Hands Agency in Carry On Regardless a decade earlier.

Richard O’Callaghan was brought in to the Carry On movies by producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas to replace Jim Dale and reappears in Carry On at Your Convenience (1971).

Joan Hickson also appears in Carry on Girls, and she’s also in Confessions of a Window Cleaner.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1211

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/