Carry On Camping (1969)

Carry On Camping (1969)
Directed by Gerald Thomas
Starring Sid James, Charles Hawtry, Barbara Windsor
Rated R
UK

"We're going on a lovely nature ramble!"  

Carry On Camping was part of a decades-long series of low-budget British comedies. Directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers, the films generally lampooned traditional British society and/or stuffier elements of cinema, and were liberally laced with double entendres and gratuitous T&A. The series began in 1958 with military spoof Carry on Sargeant and ended in 1978 with the softcore send-up Carry On Emmanuelle. A stock cast of British comic actors appeared in every film, and included – as this one does – Sid James, Peter Butterworth, Joan Sims, and Barbara Windsor, among others. There were 31 Carry On films in the original series, as well a mid 70’s TV series. In 2003, a boxset of the entire collection was quietly released in the US by Anchor Bay. Still, the Carry On films remain largely unseen and/or unheralded by American audiences. On one hand, it’s easy to see why. These movies, after all, are super British. I mean, Spice World, Eastenders, Upstairs-Downstairs British. They are so British they often seem like an SNL spoof of a British sex comedy, and a good portion of any Carry On film is devoted to sly references to various segments of Brit society that will sail right over American heads. So there’s that. On the other hand, their gleefully destructive sense of humor and dollops of tasty crumpet make for pleasantly dim-witted entertainment, a sort of super-sized Benny Hill with a cast of aging pratfallers tumbling through one disastrous set-up after another. Carry on Camping, produced midway through the series’ run, is widely considered one of the best and most accessible Carry On films.

Two couples are at the cinema, checking out a nudist camp movie. There’s crusty old Sid (Sid James) and uptight Joan (Joan Sims), dimwitted oaf Bernie (Bernard Bresslaw) and squeamish Anthea (Dils Laye). Naturally, the fellas love it. The women, on the other hand, are outraged and sickened by the whole thing, and demand they all leave.

Meanwhile, across town, another couple discuss their impending camping trip. Peter Potter (Terry Scott) is the classic henpecked husband. Harriet (Betty Marsden) is  his braying, self-obsessed shrew of a wife. Harriet never listens to him, so to amuse himself, he says whatever comes into his head. “
“How was work?”
“ I took a bunch of opium and spent my paycheck on prostitutes.”
“Oh, that’s nice dear.”
That kind of thing.

It’s Sid and Bernie’s job to plan this year’s camping trip with the girls. Sid comes up with a plan to go the nudist camp without telling the girls where they’re going. Seems like a can’t-miss maneuver. He and Bermie head over the sporting goods store to grab a brochure for “Paradise Resort”. That was the name of the place in the nudie flick. Also at the sporting goods store is one Charlie Muggens (Charles Hawtry), a Don Knotts type who molests a shopgirl (Hammer girl Valerie Leon) in a tent.

He wants to go camping, too. I get the feeling everybody’s going to run into each other later on.

Then we go to an all-girls school where two of the girls whale on each other in an awesome cat-fight! It turns out the girls are all camping too. Everyone's going camping!

The big day arrives. Sid and Bernie head out to pick up the girls. Joan lives with her judgmental mom, who does not approve of Sid at all. I’m not surprised, seeing as there’s at least a 20 year gap in age between Sid and Joan. Anyway, Bernie almost gives up the game, but so far, the girls have no idea what the fellas have planned.

The ride up to the county  mostly yelling and puking and hurt feelings.

So the fellas finally make it to Paradise Camp and get extorted by the owner, Mr. Fiddler (Peter Butterworth). Of course now the girls are hip to what's happening – or at least what they think is happening - and demand to go home, but the men won't hear of it, so they press on. But once they get to the campgrounds, they find out they've made a terrible mistake – it's just a regular camp. No nudity allowed, even. Plus, it starts to pour as soon as they get there!

Meanwhile, Peter and Harriet finally find a decent place to camp after Peter  has a run in with a bull and then gets an ass full of buckshot courtesy an angry farmer. Peter settles in for a well-deserved rest after his trying day, but then Mr Muggins wanders by, and Harriet lets him stay in the tent with them. Old-timey ass-on-fire physical comedy hilarity ensues as they all try to fit into the tiny tent.

Also meanwhile, the school girls are staying at a hotel for the night and getting into all kinds of pranks and antics! Mostly they try to get their matronly headmistress, Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques) to hook up their obviously gay headmaster Mr. Soaper (Kenneth Williams).

The most mischievous girl in class, Babs (Barbara Windsor), switches some door numbers so that Soaper ends up in bed with Miss Haggard. He’s appalled, but she’s in love.

Back at Paradise camp, Sid and Bernie learn an important lesson: don't put your inflatable raft in your tent. It won't end well. Also, don’t put your aching feet in your girlfriend’s pot of boiling stew.  Just when they've had enough of this awful trip, the busload of schoolgirls show up. So what the hell, might as well stay awhile! Muggins shows up, too. He was hitchhiking and got picked up by  the bus. The Potters soon arrive, as well. Now the whole gang is at Paradise Camp!

And then Soaper leads the girls for some sexy exercises. Babs tops flies right off! Goodtimes.

Afterwards, he plans on taking them on a “Nature ramble”. First, though, shower scene! It plays out sorta like the Porky's scene, only without the boobs and penises. Soaper gets a suggestive load of toothpaste in the eye, though.

Meanwhile, Peter Potter wanders off to get drunk by himself. Another schoolgirl, Jane (Elizabeth Knight) shows up – she pretended she was sick to get out of visiting a boring old  monastery – and gives Peter an offer he can't refuse

Boning the young chippy gives him the shot of self-confidence he needs to toss out Mr. Muggins and then give his wife a little of the ol' slap and tickle.

Sid and Bernie sneak off to the monastery disguised as monks so they can make plans with Babs and Fanny (Sandra Caron).  He looks just like the Cryptkeeper from Tales of the Crypt, it's awesome. Then they sneak back to prepare for the evening's activities.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a crowd of hippies show up for a dance party and a performance by the Flowerbuds! Everybody's having a groovy time, but the campers are annoyed and want the racket to stop, so the fellas devise a sinister plan, and they end up blowing up the band’s equipment. By the way, the Buds are supposed to be playing rock music, but the music on the soundtrack is lounge-pop with an orchestra.

So that's it. The trip's over. Nobody gets laid. Or do they?

Haha, no everybody gets laid!

Despite being a low-budget, low-brow sex comedy, Carry on Camping was the biggest grossing film in England in 1969 and even played in theaters in the US. As mentioned, it is often considered to the best of the Carry On films. Although this really makes me dread running into the worst of the series, I still found CoC to be an entertaining little romp. As you by now expect from any Britcom, everybody’s miserable, uncomfortable and unsatisfied, and all the washed-out, gray and mud-soaked shots of the campgrounds make camping seem even less appealing then it usually does. None of the characters shamelessly lusting after one another are age-appropriate, the ‘psychedelic’ band is the least psychedelic thing I’ve ever seen, and Barbara Windsor’s kooky pile of hair and ill-fitting short-shorts were more odd-looking than alluring. Throw in a barrage of double entrendes so relentless in their execution that even the cast of Three’s Company would balk at the script, and you’ve got a grubby little winner on your hands. Based on Camping, I’d definitely be into delving deeper into the Carry On series. As the British often say – at least in the head of Americans who’ve never been to the UK – Carry on Camping is a jolly good show. Pip pip, and all that.


- Ken McIntyre

Suburban Shootout (2006)

Suburban Shootout (2006)
Directed by Vito Rocco 

Starring Anna Chancellor, Felicity Montagu, Amelia Bullmore, Rachel Blake 

Genre: Crime-comedy 
UK

“I just  want you to know I just had anal sex with your boyfriend in the toilets.”

“Really? That's so cool!” 

Perpetually put-upon plain-jane Joyce (Bullmore) has just moved into the fairytale suburb of Little Stempington, a picturesque, upper-middle-class paradise where crime simply does not exist. Her husband, Jeremy (Ralph Ineson), is Stempington's new chief of police, and her teenage son Bill (Tom Hiddleson) is home from his year in Africa building an  orphanage. Pleasant people, pleasant town. Or is it? 

It is not. There is a very good reason why there's no crime in Stempington. Turns out there's a trio of gun-toting soccer-moms who beat, shoot and terrorize anybody who even thinks of doing anything untoward in their perfect little 'burb. Worse still, they have competition – there's another rogue trio of 40-something ladies who do their best to thwart their arch-nemeses at every turn.

Joyce hasn't even unpacked her boxes before Camilla (Chancellor) and Barbara (Montagu) start having gun battles over which team Joyce is going to join. Joyce gets blackmailed into joining Camilla's crew when she unwittingly blows up the local wicker basket shop, but secretly works with Babs' team to rid Stempington of Camilla's evil cabal. Things get even more complicated when they get caught up in the estrogen-dealing trade (estrogen patches are a new underground drug sensation! Get into it!). When Camilla's tarty daughter Jewel (Ruth Wilson, doing a sort of slutty, grown-up Veruca Salt) steals their drug money, they end up being stalked, kidnapped and menaced by French gangsters.

Outrage piles on outrage, leading to a...well, the title of the show is Suburban Shootout, after all. 

Frequently hair-raising but always funny, Suburban Shootout is pretty delightful stuff, deftly balancing the escalating crime story with character-driven humor. Fans of Hot Fuzz and Weeds should love it. 

- Ken McIntyre

Siren (2010)

Directed by Andrew Hull 
Starring Eoin Macken, Anna Skellern, Anthony Jabre, Tereza Srbova
Rated R
UK

“I think I figured it out. She hypnotized us!”

I haven't met too many folks that are fans of the taut, unsettling parking lot psycho flick P2,but it's one of my favorite anti-Xmas epics. Writer/director Hull wrote that one. I'm also sucker for peril-at-sea flicks. I think this is because the last thing I'd do is get on a boat and bob around in the ocean. Fuck that. It's full of sharks. I'm also a big fan of lady/monster flicks. Species! Thusly, it was inevitable that I would see Siren, a film that neatly merges both genres in one pulpy, low-budget package.

Ken (Eoin Macken – what the fuck man, Eoin?), a douchebaggy, constantly horny American neo-rapist, his gorgeous, put-upon, British girlfriend Rachel (Aussie actress Anna  Skellern, from The Descent 2), and her equally British (and also sorta douchebaggy) ex-boyfriend Marco (Anthony Jabre) all meet up in Greece and rent a boat for a weekend excursion to the Greek Isles. Specifically, they're going to sail around the island where the mythical “siren” was fond of luring sailors to their deaths. What could go wrong?

Even before they get on the boat, Rachel keeps seeing a mysterious hot blonde who pops up and vanishes whenever she's alone. But Rach is pretty on the edge anyway, what with the aggro-roleplaying fuck sessions Ken's always dragging her into, so who knows?

Anyway, they're only out for a couple hours when Ken abandons his post to have punishing sex with Rachel, leaving Marco to helm the ship. Marco sees a distress signal on an island and crashes into the beach. They find a panicked sailor who freaks out and accidentally (or maybe purposely) kills himself, and that very hot blonde Rachel's been hallucinating for the past couple days.

Her name is Silka (Tereza Srbova), and she's a weirdo. However, she's good looking enough to overlook her quirks. She doesn't say much more than “Help me”, so they figure she's a stranded tourist, and make it their mission to bring her back to shore. First though, they wander around the island, get drunk, play charades, have a sing-along, allow the willowy blonde to plant seeds of conspiracy in everyone's mind, have a nude swim, and then start hallucinating wildly about massacring each other. As you do.

It was definitely a weird day. The next morning, Ken decides it's time they all got off this screwy island, but when he announces this, Silka laughs at him and turns green and tells him he's going to die. Well, we all are, someday, Silka.

She means today, though. The gang panics and makes a run for it, when they discovers lots of smashed-up boats and a pit full of corpses! Well, you don't really see either – there's no budget for corpses or shipwrecks – but we know, man. We know.

Murder and  mayhem ensues until the girls are left. And so, they battle to the death...and possibly beyond. Well, first they make-out a little, and then they battle.

Ok, so you can guess the cornball “twist” ending in the first ten-minutes (after a pretty effective fake-out prologue). Also, Hull never commits to either sweat-soaked dread or sexed-up camp, and the film really needs one or the other. But I still had a pretty swell time watching Siren. It's reasonably unique, looks great, and the acting is a notch above what you'd expect. More importantly, It's got hot girls acting weird, hot girls swimming naked, and hot girls making out. And I'm a pretty simple guy.

PS director Andrew Hull had a bicycling accident and died shortly after wrapping Siren in 2010. RIP, sir. I liked the cut of your jib.

- Ken McIntyre 

Tiffany Jones (1973)

Directed by Pete Walker
Starring Anouska Hempel, Eric Pohlman, Damien Thomas
Rated R
UK

“If the fuzz pick me up, I'll get busted for pushin' porn!”

In 1998, Anouska Hempel bought the rights to Tiffany Jones, effectively stymieing any further releases of the film in the UK. ‘Why? What could possibly be scandalous enough?’ you might ask. Well, as far as I can tell, it’s because as the titular character she shows her boobs and Hempel is, as of 1980, married to wealthy insurance tycoon Sir Mark Weinberg and therefore a member of high society more correctly referred to as Lady Weinberg. Or if you’re one of her high society friends, Nou-Nou.

I’m no expert on the nuances of British high society, but I gather it is considered most improper for one to have shown one’s tits in a film prior to one’s being inducted into high society. It is, on the other hand, considered entirely proper for one to use one’s excessive amounts of money for the censorship of past embarrassments.

Unfortunately, we live in a time where we have this thing called “the Internet”, which makes it really bloody hard to censor one’s past embarrassments. Especially when said embarrassments were available on VHS for 25 years.

Hempel tried to do the same thing with Russ Meyer’s Black Snake, which she also headlined. She managed to stop a UK theatrical rerelease in the late ‘90s, but the DVD rights proved unobtainable – the film is readily available as part of Arrow Films’ terrific Meyer box set.

Ol’ Russ, incidentally, wasn’t much of a fan of Hempel, who reputedly only stepped into the part after the previously booked lead OD’d. “Hempel?” he said. “Tiny tits and a big mouth. We had a stand-in for the tits and wouldn't let her speak.”

To be honest, neither film is particularly scandalous. Without the nudity, Tiffany Jones could be remade this year starring some kind of pop singer and marketed to teenage girls.

That would actually be more appropriate, since the nudity – and don’t get me wrong here, it comes close to saving the film – is kinda out of place, considering where Tiffany Jones comes from. The film is based on a comic strip that ran in newspapers from 1964 until sometime in the ‘70s which was written by Jenny Butterworth and illustrated beautifully (just check out the line-work on the hair in the above piece) by Pat Tourret.

The strip was the story of a British girl who moved to the big city and became a model and lived the life of an empowered and successful young lady. With that in mind, it’s a little confusing as to why the movie is, basically, about Tiffany trying to bring down the dictatorial government of a small Eastern European nation.

Okay, very confusing. Utterly bewildering. Fucking mystifying, in fact.

Tiffany’s still a model in the film, as the pre-credits introduction reminds us. While filming a commercial on a floating bed in the ocean, she has to dive off it as it begins to drift out to sea. “Who'd be a model?” she says awkwardly to the camera, sitting soggily on the shore. “I would!”

Following the credits, in the nation of Zirdana in Eastern Europe some rebels are sneaking around the office of the nation’s dictator. Along with a bunch of other files, they find a picture of Tiffany, though they’re unsure of who she is.

Back in London, Tiffany is wearing a towel at home with boyfriend Guy (Ray Brooks) and flatmate Jo (Susan Sheers), although Guy pretty quickly leaves because, I dunno, he and Tiffany apparently have a relationship that doesn’t involve kissing or touching or talking or hanging around each other at all. So Jo and Tiffany just watch the news together.

There’s an interview on with the visiting President Boris Jabal (Eric Pohlman) of, you guessed it, Zirdana. “That man has cruel eyes,” says Tiffany.

“He's rather sexy, I thought,” chimes in Jo.

Jo has pretty low standards, I guess.

The action moves to the president’s temporary British lodgings, where it turns out he’s also trying to find out the identity of Tiffany. Somehow – it’s not really explained – he does and his underling approaches Tiffany’s manager to set up a meeting under the pretence of a photo shoot.

Tiffany is driven to the mansion and is brought in to see the president, who orders her to take her top off and then confesses that he’s obsessed with her while he holds a candlestick.

He’s also not real good with the romancing. “Come, kiss your president!” he demands.

“You're not my president! I have a monarch!” Tiffany says, patriotically. He gets the idea that she’s not going to have sex with him there and then, and invites her to the opera the next night. She agrees, puts her top back on and leaves.

While she’s heading off an old woman protests the dictatorship by jumping on the moving car.

Next day, Tiffany is on her way out to another job when she unexpectedly runs into Guy in the hallway of her house while topless. They have a short polite conversation and then she heads off to her photo shoot.

Turns out it’s just another ruse though, and the man who booked the session is actually Prince Salvator (Damien Thomas, Twins of Evil), the son of the murdered King of Zirdana. He does at least take a couple of pictures anyway, while sitting in a throne.

Turns out the King was murdered, of course, by the president, and the Prince wants Tiffany to help him back to his rightful place as head of Zidana. She pretty much just takes his word for it. Why not, right?

She heads along to the opera with the president – even though it’s Guy’s birthday, the poor bastard – and then heads back to the mansion afterwards to eat some chicken. The president once again throws himself at/on her, but she admonishes him for his behaviour.

“Boris, don't spoil my admiration of you,” she says. “I know it's not the real you. Only fascist pigs and bourgeois people behave like that.”

Then she heads off again, driven by the president’s double-chinned chauffeur.

Turns out he’s not who he says he is either. He’s working for the Zidanian rebels, who are undercover in London as kitchen workers. They strip her and tie her to the kitchen table and threaten her if she doesn’t reveal her connection to the president.

“If you refuse,” their leader says, “Stefan here will ladle the consommé julienne onto those naked shoulders of yours until you tell the truth.”

She tells them the truth, but they don’t really believe her. Eventually, she’s left alone with Georg (Geoffrey Hughes, Onslow from super dull British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances) - the fat, stupid one – and manages to convince him to let her go.

Meanwhile, Jo and Guy are at home wondering where she is, but not really wondering too hard. Actually, they’re just having a cup of tea and some cake, which is probably what all British people do when they’re worried.

Tiffany – wearing a chef’s uniform – heads around to see the Prince and has a bit of a nap there. She also passes on some information she found out about an arms deal that the president plans to attend. Together, they cook up a plan: Tiffany will send the rebels to the arms deal, while she detains the president at a model’s union picnic.

She also goes to the arms dealers and pretends to be a prostitute and sets up a meeting for later that night, after the arms deal. No idea why.

So, the president turns up to the picnic at the appointed time. He’s not there for long before all the girls start taking their clothes off. What follows is a good five minutes of ‘70s British nudity, which is always great. In fact, it’s the highlight of the entire film and there’s cake and boobs and everything. Everything!

Eventually they convince the president to strip down too, and feed him grapes or something. While this is happening, Guy surreptitiously takes pictures of the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Tiffany steals his uniform and hands it off to the rebels, who use it to impersonate him at the arms deal. They organise to meet the arms dealers at an air strip later that night to hand over payment. Unfortunately, the president manages to get the information about this deal out of his chauffeur.

Tiffany turns up to meet the arms dealers, along with the Prince, who’s dressed as a woman. Then she makes out with the Prince in a phone booth after she calls Guy to tell him to bring the pictures of the picnic.

Everyone – seriously, pretty much the whole cast of the film up until this point, with the sad exception of the nude models – turns up to the airport. The Prince grabs a plane and heads back to Zindana with the incriminating photos, and the president and the rebels rip Tiffany’s clothes off and chase her around the air strip.

Tiffany goes home and goes to bed. The end.

If the above sounds like a series of events that just keep happening at random, then I’ve conveyed the way the movie works pretty authentically. Tiffany takes absolutely everything in her stride and doesn’t really react to anything. Even the fact that she’s successfully brought down an oppressive dictatorship doesn’t have any effect – she literally just goes to bed. It’s all very odd, and a complete mess.

Director Pete Walker was better known for horror films like Die Screaming, Marianne and Frightmare. The scriptwriter, Alfred Shaughnessy, was better known for dreary TV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. So it’s probably not entirely surprising Tiffany Jones turned out so badly.

The problem really seems to be that Tiffany Jones has absolutely no idea what it is – saucy sex comedy? Spy thriller? Romance? It doesn’t do very well at any of them.

But then, why aim for sex comedy and spy thriller when the comic strip was an uplifting squeaky-clean affair about a girl wearing nice clothes and hanging out with her flatmate and boyfriend? Baffling.

Frankly, Lady Weinberg can bloody keep it. No one’s missing much with this off the market.

- Alistair Wallis