Review of Carry on Henry VIII

With such people as Charlton Heston, Richard Burton, Robert Shaw, and Montagu Love playing Henry VIII you get the idea it's both a plumb role and a serious part. But the big screen never a Henry VIII like the one that Sidney James gives us in Carry On Henry VIII.

Henry gets a couple extra wives in this one, dropped nicely between Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. One's going to the block as the film opens. After that James gets a present of French princess Joan Sims cousin of King Francis I of France and that seems like a good bet to solidify an alliance.

But on the wedding night it turns out Henry can't stand her garlic breath. Not only is it on all that French food, but the woman uses it like chewing gum. James is set to fling her out and he lights on a new truly bosomy queen for his taste.

But that upsets the balance of power in Europe. Not to mention the machinations of Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell and Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey.

Then there's poor Charles Hawtrey who is the king's equerry and Queen Sims believes that her needs come first if the king isn't meeting them, maybe Hawtrey will. That was quite the seduction scene.

Medieval England never saw history like this, but Carry On Henry VIII gives out with a lot of laughs.