Carry On Nerding - Nerd Girl of Note #152 - Joan Sims

Like Sid James, there is another face Carry On films needs, and that is Joan Sims.

Sure, there are other great ladies of Carry On, notably Barbara Windsor and Hattie Jacques, but Sims is the perfect foil for Sid James. She has the comedic chops to play many types of roles. She has the age to play older women, but the beauty to portray younger women. When she is not in a film, she is missed, but when she is Sims is quite the scene-stealer. For example, in Carry On Girls, she plays the upper-middle-aged landlady in a contentious relationship with Sid James. In Carry On Henry VIII, she plays the virginal queen newly wed to Sid James' Henry VIII. In Carry On Matron she plays a bit part of a woman three weeks overdue to deliver her baby, and makes for one of the better side plots of the film.

Beside her Carry On roles, Sims is also a Doctor Who alum, being featured in "The Trial of a Time Lord" (1986), appearances in British comedy show The Goodies, and As Time Goes By.

Watch on YouTube:

• Carry On Girls
• Carry On Matron
• Carry On Henry VIII

Carry On Nerding - Carry On Double Feature

I got these two on DVD before realizing they were available on YouTube

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Long a film I had wanted to see, Carry On Up the Jungle (Gerald Thomas, 1970) features much of the typical Carry On regulars, with the added wonderfulness of NGoN #18, Valerie Leon.

Carry On Up the Jungle features Sid James the intrepid hunter Bill Boosey, Frankie Howerd as Professor Inigo Tinkle, Joan Sims as Lady Evelyn Bagley, and Bernard Bresslaw as native guide Upsidaisi.

The movie is not without its problems, notably Bresslaw's performance in blackface. This is not minstrel show blackface. It is actually quite effective, as I did not realize it was him for quite a while. It is also not overly offensive, as that type thing goes. Upsidaisi is very much like Florence from The Jeffersons, rather than being an Amos & Andy type performance. I am not sure what the reasoning for the blackface is. Fans of The Avengers may know that there were no people of color in the show as directed by the network. However, there are black actors in side roles.

For the most part, the story is pretty solid. Professor Inigo Tinkle is searching for rare birds, and Lady Evelyn Bagley is looking for a memento from her son, lost twenty-five years previous. Boosey is their safari guide. Not only do they discover a rare bird, believed to be extinct, and the child and husband of Lady Bagley, but also a tribe of women who never have male offspring (led by Valerie Leon). Things get a bit shaky at times, story-wise, but is full of jungle film tropes that will keep fans of that genre either pleased or enraged.

Watch it on YouTube

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Carry On Loving (Gerald Thomas, 1970) was on the same DVD as Carry On Up the Jungle. I had no particular interest in it, but as long as I bought it, I was going to watch it.

Being set in then-modern times, it is the story of a marriage agency and its clients. It stars Sid James, as Sidney Bliss, Hattie Jacques as Sophie Bliss/Plummett, Joan Sims as Esme Crowfoot, and Kenneth Williams as Percival Snooper. Sidney Bliss has a habit of overly vetting the female clients, which eventually causes problems for him as well as many of them.

This one was pretty enjoyable, but not exactly a favorite. Some good gags. More cheesecake than Up the Jungle. Very typical twists of the mistaken-identity variety and general innuendo. Worth watching, but far from my favorite.

Watch it on YouTube

Carry On Nerding - Carry On Matron (Gerald Thomas, 1972)

There were many Carry On medical films. Carry On Matron was my first, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

In this film, Sid James is a gangster who is hoping to steal a cache of birth control pills from a maternity hospital so they may be sold overseas. To get an inside man at the hospital he has his son (Kenneth Cope) disguise himself as a female nurse. Kenneth Williams steals this one though, as the hypochondriac hospital director Sir Bernard Cutting. He is played with Williams' typical high-camp. To prove his maleness, and ultimately end his fears, he decides to prove himself with the head matron, Hattie Jacques. There are numerous other side plots, and the film features many Carry On regulars such as Barbara Windsor, Valerie Leon, Charles Hawtry, Bernard Bresslaw, and Terry Scott.

This is a funny, well thought out story. One of the better overall efforts from the Carry On crew.

Watch it on YouTube

Carry On Nerding - Carry On Up the Khyber (Gerald Thomas, 1968)

Surprisingly funny, and oddly apropos for today's climate, Carry On... Up the Khyber looks at the British rule in India and the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.

This is a fun film with Sid James as Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond, the British governor, Kenneth Williams as The Khasi of Kalabar, Joan Sims as Lady Ruff-Diamond, and Bernard Bresslaw as the warlord Bungdit In. The governor and the Khasi are at odds over British rule, and it soon comes to life that the Scottish regiment, much feared in the area (called the "Devils in Skirts") wear underwear under their kilts. Much of the conflict comes between the Khasi proving they do and the governor proving they do not.

The humour is very good, poking fun at the British primarily, and their attitude towards the locals. It is better than many of the Carry On films I have seen, and well worth watching. Joan Sims is funny as the lower-class governor's wife, and Sid James tends to lay off the Cockney bit (for the most part).

Watch it on YouTube

Carry On Nerding - Fan-Boy Icon #68 Sid James

I have been watching a lot of Carry On films lately, and thought that some of you might not be familiar with them. Thus Carry On Nerding week here at the blog. To get a feel for Carry On, you have to start with the king of the series; Sid James.

Carry On started as risqué comedies in Britain. Many were parodies of other genres. They started in 1958 with Carry On Sergeant, and continued into the 1990s. If you enjoy the British television series Are You Being Served, then you will likely enjoy Carry On films. AYBS regulars Frank Thornton (Capt. Peacock) and Wendy Richard (Ms Brahms) were both Carry On alumni.

So, as to Sid James; he is very much the male face of Carry On. He was not in every film, but is certainly the guy that you miss if he is not there. There are many other male actors that feature prominently, such as Bernard Bresslaw, Kenneth Williams, and Charles Hawtrey in particular, but James is easily the face of Carry On. James apepared in 144 films (according to the IMDb), including 23 (by my count) Carry On films. James' characters were always fairly similar, a wise-cracking Cockney, whether he was playing a gangster, Indian governor, or Henry VIII. However, I find his humour to be such that you don't care.

True to his art, and likely the way he would have wanted to go, James died of a heart attack on stage to peals of laughter from the crowd. They, of course, did not realize what was happening.



If you'd like to check out some of these films, or see those that will be discussed through the week, check out CarryOnFilms on YouTube, which has many of them in pretty good quality.

The Perverse Allure of Boxing

When I was a kid, boxing was the only sport that interested me. This was the '80s, so Muhammad Ali, and most of the great heavyweights were gone, but it was the era of the middleweights. Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler... these were the big names for me. I don't watch boxing anymore, until recently, and it made me think about it.

I am quite the pacifist. I don't approve of violence, yet something about boxing always pulls me back. I have plenty of reasons to know it is not good. I remember watching the fight where Ray Mancini killed Duk Koo Kim in the ring. I saw enough of The Contender to know that many boxers have nothing going for them except the slim chance boxing provides. Lastly, when I see the state of boxing's heroes in their old age, even the cleverest of which are punchy and suffering from brain trauma. Easily the saddest of these cases was Muhammad Ali, who was a brilliant personality, but now crippled by too many years of bludgeoning.



Yet, as the sports fans at work started talking about the recent fights of boxers I have never heard of, I became nostalgic for the boxing of my youth, much of which is on YouTube these days. The savagery is almost too much at times. I recently watched the first meeting between Tommy Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard, which is a wonderful fight by two masters (Leonard won). I then watched Hearns fight Roberto Duran. Duran was the only boxer who had beaten Sugar Ray Leonard at that point, and Leonard had been the only one to beat Hearns. This fight was brutal. Hearns knocked Duran out in the second round, almost as though he were making a point. It was less a fight, and more of a grudge fuck.



I still don't know why I keep coming back. Boxing is one of those things that are horrific, and barbaric, but these is something... I don't want to say beautiful, but something akin to that. Perhaps it is the contrast of incredible skill and the pointlessness of bludgeoning your fellow man to near death? I revel in the performance, but it always makes me sad. That is likely the answer.

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (Noboru Iguchi, 2011)

I was discussing Karate-Robo Zaborgar a bit with @koboldstyle and @TheAngryDM on Twitter recently, and realized that I had never reviewed it. Some people say that there's a woman to blame, but I know it's my own damn fault.

This is another in the long line of rubber monster movies by my favorite Tokyo-Weird director, Noboru Iguchi (Dead Sushi, Mutant Girls Squad, Robogeisha, Zombie Ass, et al). For my money, this is his best, and most accessible effort.

The story is similar to older Japanese stories about a boy and his robot. Here, Daimon, is our boy. He is committed to battling evil with his robot sidekick Zaborgar. Daimon has some daddy issues though. It seems his father loves his dead brother more, and when Daimon finds out the truth he goes off the rails and his crime fighting days are over... for now, at least.

Cut to the present (or Daimon's future). At middle-age, Daimon is still sporting his crime-fighting gear, despite being an office temp. His attitude keeps him from holding down a job. Eventually, old troubles begin to brew, and the middle-aged Daimon and Zaborgar are called into action.

I don't want to give much of the story away, as it is pretty interesting, particularly for Iguchi. As for it being accessible, as I remember it, this is less tacky than his other films. It is not filled with panties and fart jokes. Anything of the sort that does appear is not as gratuitous as one might expect from Iguchi-sensei (there is one weird tentacle scene). It does harken back to old robot/monster films and shows of old, and was certainly inspired by the stuff that inspired Iguchi to make films.

It is currently streaming on Netflix, and possibly other online services. Well worth watching. I admit that at times it is hard to follow, but is a highly fun film, particularly for lovers of old Japanese sci-fi like Space Giants.