Carry On Camping **** (1969, Sidney James, Bernard Bresslaw, Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Peter Butterworth, Charles Hawtrey, Terry Scott, Dilys Laye) – Classic Movie Review 1913

Director Gerald Thomas’s 1969 laughter-raiser – the 18th in the series – is one of the most famous of the 31 Carry On movies, mainly thanks to Barbara Windsor’s bra but also to the 10 regulars present and correct, and on their best funny form.

Writer Talbot Rothwell’s screenplay concentrates and both the smutty and nutty sides of nudism with Sidney James and Bernard Bresslaw as Sid Boggle and Bernie Lugg trying to get their girlfriends Joan Fussey and Anthea Meeks (Joan Sims and Dilys Laye) into their sleeping bags at the holiday camp, which is also populated with sex-starved schoolgirls and bands of hippies.

Then there’s Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques) eyeing up Doctor Kenneth Soaper (Kenneth Williams), plus Peter Butterworth, Charles Hawtrey and Terry Scott as Josh Fiddler, Charlie Muggins and Peter Potter. And all eyes are on Windsor’s Babs and that popping bra.

This is a great fun-filled, high-spirited camping expedition, with lots of laughs from the delightful stars, whose high spirits weren’t cooled by filming in icy November on a mud field that had to be painted green to look like grass in summer.

Carry On Camping is helpfully given an alternative title at the start of the opening credits – Let Sleeping Bags Lie.

Julian Holloway, Betty Marsden, Derek Francis, George Moon and Valerie Leon also appear.

Charles Hawtrey’s mother visited the set regularly, wearing a black veil and refusing to come out of the dressing room.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1913

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