Crude, obvious and lacking in any wit, a totally rubbish entry in the series
21 June 2004
Emmannuelle Prevert is the wife of the French Ambassador to the UK. After a separation of some time, she returns to the UK on Concorde to give it another chance. However her husband is only interested in body building and is unwilling to satisfy her very high sex drive. After much pleading, Emmannuelle goes out to see the sights of London and hopefully get some satisfaction along the way.

With the opening of the film on Concorde (spoofing Emmanuelle's own plane moment) we have the height of intelligence of this film (in the reference to that film) but a split second later we are in the territory of crude and obvious jokes starting as it continues with an erect Concorde and the predictable 'are you coming' joke. The material basically continues like this for the rest of the film, with only a very vague (and uninteresting) plot to provide a loose structure. Within this structure are hung endless sex jokes and titillating material (for the period) that started out being lame but ended up being pathetic and just plain stupid. They are totally lacking in the wit that the best of the Carry On films have, instead it is obvious and crude – there is no sparkle to the deliver, it is just plodding and lacking in anything of value.

The accents in the film are pretty awful but I think that's the point as the French people are played by English actors. Danielle is quite sexy and could almost pass as French but she can't act and her sexuality is wasted due to the tame standards required of the film (a group orgy with a football team involves her kissing each of them slightly and that's it – no nudity from her!). The rest of the cast is made up of famous Carry On stars and you can see it in their delivery that they know their glory days are gone and they are not too taken by the material, but it is to their credit that many of them still put on a brave face. Williams has no good lines to work with even if his character is amusing, Connor hams it up rather a lot but enjoys himself, Butterworth is wasted totally while Joan Sims only contribution seems to be having a crude name (Mrs Dangle). Douglas is so-so but Larry Dann is pretty rubbish which is a shame since he is supposed to be a big part of the 'plot'.

Overall, this is rubbish. I wanted to find some silly laughs in it but I found nothing of any value here. The 'jokes' are crude and obvious and there are no moments of clever writing in it at all: the Carry-On series may never have been the height of wit but this entry (oh-err missus) in the series makes some of the early films look like the pinnacle of modern humour. I love many of the Carry On movies and even I hated this one – silly, banal and a disgrace even by the less than high standards of the series.
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