I Watch Films: Carry On At Your Convenience

 

Carry On At Your Convenience

The firm of W C Boggs (Kenneth Williams) and son (Richard O’Callaghan), an old-fashioned manufacturer of toilets, is in trouble. Vic Spanner (Kenneth Cope), the union shop steward calls them out on strike at the slightest opportunity, or because the local football team are playing that afternoon. He’s also sweet on canteen worker Myrtle Plummer (Jacki Pyper), making him a rival for Boggs Junior. He’s supported by his dim-witted friend Bernie (Bernard Bresslaw).

Camp designer Charles Coote (Charles Hawtrey) has put a bidet in the latest line, but Boggs senior thinks this too dubious despite Boggs Junior also wanting it. Between management and the shop floor is Sid Plummer (Sid James), Myrtle’s dad who does a better job of keeping the peace than Boggs Junior who keeps giving Vic excuses to complain and call out the workers.

There are some other characters; Chloe Moore (Joan Sims) is Sid’s next door neighbour and works in the factory; her husband is a salesman and often away and their attraction to each other keeps getting interrupted. A subplot has the canary that Sid’s wife (Hattie Jacques) dotes on to the exclusion of all else picking winning horses, which allows Sid to bail out the company before the bookie puts a limit on him. Charles Coate is a lodger of Vic’s Mum, the two being caught playing a strip card game for some reason. Also Boggs Senior’s secretary is in love with him, despite part of her job being to test the toilets.

This is a more strongly plotted Carry On film than many, which is not saying much. Boggs Junior gets a contract to supply bathroom suites to a middle eastern Sultan with 1000 wives, but they have to make the bidets. When it turns out the bidets have a combination fitting, which combines two jobs (and potentially, though not practically, puts someone out of work) Vic leads the workforce out on strike.

This lets some of the romantic subplots move on, while putting pressure on management. Things come to a head on the annual works outing to Brighton where aptly the kitchen staff are on strike. Drinking on an empty stomach everyone gets drunk; lots of shenanigans take place and Boggs Junior proposes to Myrtle. The next day at work the strike ends (broken by the women) and there are several more or less happy endings.

There are plenty of toilet jokes (Boggs Senior is entertainingly delicate about the nature of his business) some random smut and a fairly broad satire of labour relations. Spanner is both self-centred and wants to stick it to the bosses (who, to be fair, do all suck). But what if instead we all got along? Maybe we could make toilets and not sell the factory. I guess.

Watch This: Carry On film with a bit more satirical bite and fun jokes than some
Don’t Watch This: Very much mired in a regressive 1971