I Watch Films: Carry On Behind

 

Carry On Behind

A lot of people are going to the newly opened Riverside Caravan Site, run by (retired) Major Leap (Kenneth Connor) with the assistance of odd-job-man Henry Barnes (Peter Butterworth). Professor Crump (Kenneth Williams) has his caravan damaged by the arrival of Professor Vrooshka (Elke Sommers). They are going there with a team of students to dig up the Roman remains that were found when Barnes was digging a new cess pit. Because of this they have to share a rather cramped caravan. Vrooshka, a Russian, speaks in vaguely amusing malapropisms, such as saying “having it off,” rather than “hitting it off”.

Various other parties are there; butcher Fred (Windsor Davies) is hoping to meet some women while away from his wife, his friend Ernie, not realising it was an excuse wants to get some fishing done. Norma and Joe have a very large dog who keeps causing problems; while looking for the dog Norma is caught in a compromising position with neighbour Arthur Upmore by his wife Linda, and her mother Daphne Barnes. Daphne in turn has a Myna bird who escapes and says rude things. There’s also a pair of bicycling tent campers Carol and Sandra who have cheeked their way onto the site as well.

The usual shenanigans occur, the Myna bird starts saying things in the women’s showers, when the caravan collapses Crump gets ketchup on him and thinks he’s injured, after helping Carol and Sandra, Fred and Ernie are abandoned by them to go drinking with the students. Daphne discovers Henry is her long lost husband, who left because he couldn’t support her but after ten years has saved up £20,000 (after winning £19,950 on the football pools). The Roman mosaics, incompletely uncovered, appear to be erotic.

The film opens with Professor Crump accidentally putting on the wrong film at an archaeological talk, it being a striptease. Preparing for an opening night party at the newly built clubhouse, Major Heap attempts to instruct a painter to use paint stripper, while on the phone getting a entertainment for the party; essentially the same joke twice. The better Carry On films often have something to say about whatever situation they’re occupying, a bit of satire and parody. I don’t think the mid-70s caravaning scene was an especially ripe field for this, and hasn't gained in relevance half a century later.

Watch This: Sporadically amusing camping comedy with a couple of good setpieces
Don’t Watch This: Stupid, cliched, derivative