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Carry On Abroad
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| Year: |
1972
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Director: |
Gerald Thomas
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| Stars: |
Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey, Peter Butterworth, Bernard Bresslaw, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, June Whitfield, Jimmy Logan, Sally Geeson, Carol Hawkins
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| Genre: |
Comedy |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 3 votes) |
| Review: |
In the early seventies, the Carry On tag offered humour and innuendo, but often delivery was more hit-and-miss than a sure-fire success. In amongst offerings we find Carry On Abroad.
Taking on the new fashion for overseas holidays, the film is set around the package holiday company of Wundatours, run by Stuart Farquhar (Kenneth Williams), and specifically their trip to the newly-built luxury hotel at the Spanish resort of Elsbels. On the trip we find Vic and Cora Flange (Sid James and Joan Sims), publicans and holiday-makers of vastly different experience. Whilst Vic goes away every year, Cora prefers to stay at home - until she realises that busty blonde Sadie (Barbara Windsor) is looking like the main tourist attraction. Then she decides to go with her husband, despite her fear of travel. When they get on the coach, they meet the typical Carry On crowd: Stanley and Evelyn Blunt (Kenneth Connor and June Whitfield), he being frustrated, she being frigid and straight-laced; Eustace Tuttle (Charles Hawtrey in his last Carry On role before his falling out with the production team), a middle-aged mummy's boy who lets rip whenever he can escape her clutches; a pair of young girls on the pull (Sally Geeson and Carol Hawkins) whose disappointment is made complete when the eligible men on the tour turn out to be monks, and a motley mixture of effeminates and wide-boys.
When they get to the hotel, it's still being built, and so whilst Pepe (Peter Butterworth) and wife Floella (Hattie Jacques) try to stop the hotel falling down or Wundatours sueing for damages, the guests go on their usual romp through the script, destroying local relations, bedrooms, and eventually the entire building collapses around them. But they are so drunk and randy, they hardly notice!
This film stands on the performances of the familiar cast - all of the regulars perform wonderfully, given the right material by Talbot Rothwell. It's the additional cast that lets the thing down: Jimmy Logan isn't funny, Geeson and Hawkins are more sweet than sexy, and overall there's a feeling for me that this could have been just that little bit better. It's still well worth viewing over and again - but overall, it's like the seventies films all are - a little hit-and-miss......
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| Reviewer: |
Paul Shrimpton
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