User Reviews

this is absolutely awful. I heard that Carry on Emmanuelle was the worst of the series, but this really is. I bought this and started watching it four times then turned it off...only watched it fully the fifth time around, it's really that bad.

Joan Sims looks bloated and old, Kenneth Connor's not the little bloke with humorous quirks that we know and love him for in the series...there's nothing in here that actually works. There's no gags that are humorous.

There's a hugely embarrassing scene where there's a soldier blinking heavily....and Kenneth Connor asks him 'why he's blinking'. The gag commences for a minute 'why are you blinking?' 'no I'm blinking not' 'yes you blinking are'....That unfortunately is the level of humour used in this awful film.

You can see them trying to go back to Carry on Sergeant...but that's like trying to find Debbie Harry attractive when she's an eighty year old pensioner based on 'how she used to be'.

Kenneth Connor in his first lead role for the Carry on's deserved better than this. Patrick Mower is not carry on material.

avoid.

Set in 1940 in England, this is a story about a particular military outfit made up of men and woman who were particularly inept, lazy and probably a bit oversexed. Sid James, who wasn't supposed to be here anyway, passed away before the film was done. He could have brought some life into this, he was a great comedian. This movie is very shrill, lots of yelling, lots of noise. Does the new general of this company whip these people into shape? Do you care? The jokes are very obvious here, and I was only semi-amused a few times. The movie seems labored, and that is not good for a Carry On film. I would only recommend this film for Carry On completists. Otherwise, there are other films in the series which are infinitely better (examples are Carry On Doctor, Carry On Abroad, Carry On-Don't Lose Your Head etc).

I don't know if the CARRY ON series was past its sell by date in 1976 but you get the impression that no one is even trying to make a funny comedy here . It lacks many of the regulars like Jim Dale and Kenneth Williams and sees them replaced by the likes of Patrick Mower who lack the essential comic timing the regulars brought to the series . Perhaps worst of all is the casting of Windsor Davies and Melvyn Hayes in very similar roles they had in the popular military comedy IT AIN'T HALF HOT MUM

If the movie had played out like a feature length episode of IT AIN'T HALF HOT MUM it wouldn't have been so bad but the simple plot of guys and gals trying to get it on under the nose of a new commanding officer is painfully unfunny as are the gags , I mean when one of the funniest jokes revolves around a trio of characters called Ready , Willing and Able you know the writers David Pursall and Jack Seddon aren't trying

Rubbish. Along with Carry on Emmanuelle this is the worst of the series. I've got a lot of time for these films, but this was inexcusable. By this time (1976) the joke was no longer funny and the juice had run dry, as Sid James might have put it.

Only two of the Carry On regulars are in this and even they look bored. The jokes are staid and formulaic, delivered with the speed and panache of a postman. The budget for the film appeared to be £2.50.

Even Windsor Davies' Sergeant's bellowing couldn't save this.

1.5/10

Unable to raise a few laughs, CARRY ON ENGLAND is the swan song of the serie. Even afterwards, CARRY ON EMMANUELLE or/and COLOMBUS made it too painful to live through.

The screenplay is simply non-existent, just a symptom of one. The lead characters are poor. The cinematography is plain Tv-movie like. The routine is based on trousers taken off, shoutings, lovemaking then trousers taken off, shoutings, lovemaking then, oh, I forgot, some breasts quickly shown. Simply NOT FUNNY.

Joan Sims has a ridiculous part and it's real shame, being the only decent actress all around. Judy Geeson is awfully bad, giving the worst performance of her career with Norman J Warren's INSEMINOID. Peter Rogers & Gerald Thomas were incapable of finding a new breath in the Carry On serie : the new actors just don't work together and the screenwriters (they were two!!!) just try to put some rehash of some stuff made years ago and way much better.

I really missed Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor and the whole bunch. They were worth watching any Carry On even though the screenplays were really poor, like in CARRY ON AT YOUR CONVENIENCE. But I guess everything has an end, but this one is really painful to watch. My fast forward button still remember it!

If you want to try something really funny, then get CARRY ON MATRON or CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, these are are true gems. But you can pass that one.

2/10

During WW II., a short but aggressive major tries to regulate an experimental "mixed" military team, consisting of both men and women.

One of the worst in the series that was really at the end of its tether, a dimly unamusing comedy with feeble and well-telegraphed jokes and very uncomfortable cast. An appalling and alarming sign that too many new faces appeared on both sides of the camera, none of which having much fun.

Rotten script Wrong actors. Patrick Mower was not suited to comedy and neither was judy gleeson.this should of had Trevor Bannister and wendy richard it would of been better.Kenneth Connor looks like he would rather be somewhere else only Windsor Davis comes out with any credit.

I made the effort to watch it, I felt I should have had something out of the experience, committing an hour and a half of my time to it. what a total and utter disaster of a movie. They should really have finished once they completed Carry on Behind, the last really great movie in the series. A huge shame for Joan Sims, she had the best pedigree coming into it, and she was appallingly served, what a waste of her talent. Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson were a total shambles, neither should have been cast, no timing, no humour, coupled with the pathetic script they were all doomed. The best element had to be Windsor Davies, well suited to the role, the only one in it that got me to crack half a smile

2/10 They should have stopped half way through, too many faces missing, the moment had passed.

Another review gave this 2 stars, and included the line "The only saving grace is Windsor Davies as the bellowing Sergeant Major". This alone saves the film for me and makes it a pleasure. It is not the best Carry On and I would rate others higher, and others a lot lot lower. But I have a soft spot for this one. The relationship between Kenneth Connor and Davies is very good and very funny, especially at the start of the film. It's also always a pleasure to see Melvyn Hayes who is rare in Carry On films. The storyline and jokes are dated (as are most of the Carry On films) but give it a chance - it may grow on you!

RANKING: unlike the other worst one: EMMANNUELLE which was embarrassingly tacky, this one's just puerile - a child, albeit a child with a dirty mind could have written this.

TYPICAL: No, no, no - this is definitely not typical. Carry On films were written by Talbot Rothwell. This is not by Rothwell so it's nothing like a Carry On film. OK, he'd already left before CARRY ON BEHIND which was actually quite good but that was just a remake of CAMPING. Gone are all his trademark silly, smutty but ultimately funny innuendos. Instead we just get primary school humour - the height of sophistication is a running joke of Kenneth Connor falling into manure.....it's just so pathetic.

SEXY LADIES: The other essential of a Carry On film is saucy, sexy ladies. This one has some utterly gratuitous nudity which seems like it was added in the post edit. It's literally just for a few seconds and it serves no point whatsoever nor is remotely funny. However as a former real-life 1970s teenager this film's biggest disappointment for my former self was that although gorgeous Judy Geeson was the girl who suggested that the girls all went on parade topless, she didn't participate herself. All these years later, that disappointment still stings!

This is an astonishingly dreadful film and deserves to be burned.

Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! The Carry Ons were really running out of steam here, and all that can be said in favour of this one is that it isn't as bad as the next one, Carry On Emmannuelle. Too many new faces, the few remaining old hands completely wasted, too many actors known from TV appearing here in their TV roles. Too much nudity. The Carry Ons work best when they suggest and joke about sex. This is painful, and should be avoided.

Carry on England is really clutching at straws, this one actually has more of the greats like: Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth, Windsor Davies and Jack Douglas but their characters are just so poor it's pathetic to watch. The story is terrible and I almost fell asleep several times, they also upped the sexual content as well, which I'm not against (I'm not a Puritan) but it's just unnecessary if there's no joke behind it. The jokes are awful.

1/10: Will leave a bad taste in your mouth, probably best to avoid this one on the boxset

Don't take this the wrong way, I really like the Carry On movies but this movie was awful. First of all, the film looks fairly cheap, no really clever costumes and sets as far as I could see. And I actually found the music annoying in alternative to quirky, and the direction was sloppy, complete with messy pacing. The dialogue is not funny, the gags are poorly timed, the story isn't there and the actors really struggle with the material(no wonder). Kenneth Connor has been great in a number of Carry Ons, but that was when he was supporting. I found him bland here, and Peter Butterworth looks bored. Joan Sims is wasted, and I just missed Sidney James(who sadly passed away), Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey, these guys even with superficial material always seemed to know what they were doing. Overall, a complete mess, with the fact that it is quite short being pretty much the only redeeming quality. 1/10 Bethany Coz

The previous movie was the surprisingly good and underrated Carry On Behind which was almost as good as Carry On Camping and Carry On Abroad. So I thought this might be as good, I was wrong. It's not even close. I didn't mind Windsor Davies in the previous one, he'd come in to replace Sid James, but in this film he's just plain annoying and his constant yelling gave me a headache. This is really average and the only reason I gave it a generous 5 was because there's still a few regulars left and a couple of funny scenes. Sadly the worst was yet to come with the final two movies.

I like carry on movies .. but this is awful, terrible, unfunny, bad bad bad.

Script writers from the liver birds .... Nuff said

This is easily the closes you will get to Kubrick's 'Dr Strangelove' deep performances from a skilled cast. Yes, many of the original team are missing, but what a wonderful show. The attention to period costume is remarkable considering the small budget. The wit of the dialogue far outshines some of Oscar Wildes later work. It is a great satire, you could compare it to 'All quiet on the Western Front' but with a rich sense of humour. It takes the death aspect out of war, and that can only be a good thing. I was particularly amused by this bawdy romp through the humorous side of World War II. Those were the days. When you see this it makes you long for a Third World War, what a jolly good laugh that could be!

Bravo!

Ten out of ten! Fantastic entertainment!

There was an urban myth doing the rounds back in the seventies that this film was part-financed by the Beatles' Apple Corps company. If that is the case, then the fab four must have ingested more dodgy chemicals than anyone would have thought possible, because this is as bad as it gets. Patrick Mower and Judy Geeson are to comedy acting what sealions are to light engineering, and every moment they're on screen you'll want to hide behind the furniture. Kenneth Connor has little to do that isn't embarrassing in some way (his impersonation of a Nazi plane has to be one of the most cringe-making moments in the history of cinema) and the few loyal Carry On team members who could be bothered to turn up for this lazy, crude, shambolic outing are thrown away in cameo parts. The only part that raised a smile with me was Diane Langton attempting to operate the steering mechanism on the anti-aircraft gun, only to be thwarted by her protuberant bosom. Then Peter Jones, whose lines are intentionally awful but rendered even worse by his drab playing, completely kills the scene with his comment about "keeping abreast of the situation". One can only dream of what Talbot Rothwell (the screenwriter who bowed out of the series two years before) would have had Sidney James saying about this seaside postcard scenario...

Undoubtedly the WORST out of all the 'Carry On' films. Yes, it IS as bad as everyone seems to think! No Sid James or Kenneth Williams. Enough said!

In fact, there is only or two 'original' actors in this film, and even they aren't the 'famous' ones that come to mind when you think of "Carry On'. The film's script is useless, the acting is pathetic and it seems that none of the actors that are drafted in this plot want to pull it off. Maybe they could see that it was a mistake from the beginning filming began?????? If you want to watch a fantastic Carry On film, then give 'Cleo', 'Khyber' or 'Screaming' a view. THOSE are what Carry On films were all about!

Although it may feature a few vintage cast and crew members, this isn't really a Carry On film. The main players in the Carry On cast are absent (Sid James having passed away that year), the writers were different, the DoP was different, the composer was different, and overall it just felt like part of a different series.

There are far too many new faces for it to be considered part of the Carry on family, and what is there of the old guard are somewhat pushed to the back.

The film forgoes the fun and saucy seaside humour for rather dross sleaze, which doesn't always work. Also, for being so expensive the film looks incredibly drab, with the muted greens and browns of the army barracks feeling rather cheap.

It's not all bad though. The series regulars of Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth, Jack Douglas, and Kenneth Connor are just as good as always, and Windsor Davis is magnificent as the shouty Sargent-Major with the wicked chuckle- a role he was born to play.

As films go it's not absolutely awful, but it's not great either. If it was called something else it may very well be seen as one of those tacky 70s British films which is a decent timekiller on a Sunday afternoon. However, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth by pretending to be a Carry On film when so much of the classic formula is missing.

Carry On Dick was the last film to feature all the core cast and crew of the classic Carry On Series, and although afterwords they did hit a surprising gem with Carry On Behind, a second stroke of luck was always going to be a bad bet.

Carry on England is a poor attempt to continue a series which had lost too many of its necessary parts to work, and despite a few good points, it's not really something that can be recommended. At least, not as part of the Carry On series.

Not everybody enjoys the Carry On films, but even those that do are generally in agreement that Carry On England is a complete misfire.

It's easy to suggest that it fails because many of the series' regular lead performers are absent this time around but it's difficult to see how their presence would have improved things very much, it's not as if the familiar faces were able to save the equally bad Carry On Emmannuelle, for instance. The few established regulars who do grace Carry On England, such as Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims and Peter Butterworth, are severely restricted by the lacklustre material they are given to work with.

The biggest losses are not those in front of the camera but the likes of regular writer Talbot Rothwell and also Eric Rogers, whose musical compositions gave a consistent feeling to the Carry Ons regardless of their setting.

Rothwell built his best Carry Ons around a strong storyline, often with clearly defined goodies and baddies and with something at stake. This entry is more of a throwback to those by Rothwell's predecessor, Norman Hudis, who based the earliest Carry Ons around mockery of the establishment. Indeed, the plot of Carry On England, which concerns a commanding officer in the army trying in vain to convert his troops into a crack squad mostly resembles the very first entry in the series, Carry On Sergeant, but on that occasion Norman Hudis made the story work through well-defined characters and subplots.

Here, the superficial plot has nothing to underpin it other than... Well, I was going to write sexual innuendo, but a lot of the content in England isn't even suggestive, it's spelt out. The 1940s air defence base that serves as the setting for this film is populated by both male and female recruits, and the 'comic situation' is that the troops are more interested in making love rather than war.

Even that might be something to build a comedy on, but too much of the attempts at humour are weak, involving Connor's authoritarian character losing his dignity by losing his trousers, falling in mud, even getting stuck in a waste paper bin or having his face stained blue. It's all rather weak and lacking in imagination. Other than Connor and his bawling Sergeant Major (Windsor Davies, in a virtual carbon copy of the role that made him famous in TV's It Ain't Half Hot Mum), the characters are paper-thin and bland, with rather too little to do unless you happen to be a fan of Jack Douglas' twitching routines, which I personally found to be an ill-fitting addition to the later Carry On films. It's difficult to know where to start to repair the script, but making the characters more individual would help, and I think the plot would have been enhanced if it had been the female recruits joining the camp for the first time rather than the Commanding Officer. Given that the men are already having their wicked way with the women on a nightly basis, there's not much direction left to go in.

Although the attempts to get the big laughs fall flat, some of the throwaway lines do hit the mark, if you're able to catch them. Connor's Captain Melly, for example, has called his dog Hitler, and at one point says "Heel, Hitler."

Production values are quite high, the period setting accomplished very well and everything is well shot. Even the stock footage of fighter aircraft is surprisingly well integrated. But there were plenty of signs before this film got made that the Carry On series was past its best, and by this point Producer Peter Rogers and Director Gerald Thomas had clearly taken their eye off the ball. This entry was well below par and nearly killed the series. Looking at what came next, it's unfortunate that it didn't.

Still, even a dire Carry On is a step up from some other British comedy films of the same era and Carry On England remains watchable. It's just that watching it will only remind you how much better Carry On films usually are.