The second of four "Carry Ons" dealing with the medical establishment is certainly a comedown from the first CARRY ON NURSE (1959), to which there is even an unsubtle reference at one point if still quite tolerable and intermittently inspired. Amusingly, the film sports a barrage of fake alternate names hence the full title shown on screen in the opening credits sequence is CARRY ON DOCTOR, OR NURSE CARRIES ON AGAIN OR, DEATH OF A DAFFODIL OR, LIFE IS A FOUR-LETTER WARD A BEDPANORAMA OF HOSPITAL LIFE.
Ironically, it was originally conceived as being the last of the series hence the idea to return to the environment of their first true success for the swan song! Of course, the series not only lasted for another decade but produced some of their best (and very worst) entries during that twilight period. Furthermore, this was also intended as a closure to another long-running film comedy series the "Doctor" films which had started with DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (1954) that were produced by "Carry On" producer Peter Rogers' own wife, Betty Box which explains the portrait of a stalwart of that series, James Robertson Justice, finding itself hanging on the walls of the hospital in which this film is set!
Apart from the fact that they returned to the present-day after half a dozen period pieces...er...genre spoofs, they also introduced other celebrities into the fold, most prominently Frankie Howerd (who is even top billed here). Usual "Carry On" lead Sidney James had suffered a heart attack before shooting began, and this probably necessitated the introduction of Howerd as well as confining James' character mostly to a hospital bed practically for the film's whole duration! Most of the usual members of the gang are here: the afore-mentioned James (who is here nagged to distraction by wife Dandy Nichols), Kenneth Williams (the feared Dr. Tingle, who himself fears new recruit Windsor!), Charles Hawtrey (as a husband suffering the pregnancy pains felt by his wife?!), Joan Sims (as Howerd's devoted and practically deaf assistant), Hattie Jacques (as the matron who has the hots for Williams!), Barbara Windsor (the new nurse whose busomy figure and skimpy outfits gets every male patients' temperature to boiling point), Jim Dale (as Williams' amiably accident-prone 'rival') , Bernard Bresslaw (as the chap who underwent an appendectomy surgery but stayed on after breaking his leg from falling off the operating table!) and Peter Butterworth (quite wasted as another appendectomy patient); for whatever reason, one of the patients turns out to be The Invisible Man!
As I said before, there is some good stuff in here mostly provided by Howerd (as a charlatan faith healer who injures his backside and misunderstands Williams' diagnosis as having a mere week to live!), Dale (his rooftop antics after misreading Windsor's intentions to sunbathe as a suicide attempt is one of the film's comic highlights) and Bresslaw (who keeps convincing his visiting friend to swap clothes with him so that he can go see an attractive but lonely patient in the women's ward). Even so, the film is definitely unbalanced by having two ultra-campy performers Howerd and Williams letting rip in it (which perhaps explains why the equally effeminate Hawtrey is atypically restrained here). Furthermore, the cruder aspects of the "Carry On" brand of humor, not to mention a more frenzied gag structure, have clearly started to take center stage here to the eventual detriment of the genteel sophistication and genial characterizations displayed in earlier, better films like CARRY ON NURSE itself and CARRY ON TEACHER (1959).
Ironically, it was originally conceived as being the last of the series hence the idea to return to the environment of their first true success for the swan song! Of course, the series not only lasted for another decade but produced some of their best (and very worst) entries during that twilight period. Furthermore, this was also intended as a closure to another long-running film comedy series the "Doctor" films which had started with DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (1954) that were produced by "Carry On" producer Peter Rogers' own wife, Betty Box which explains the portrait of a stalwart of that series, James Robertson Justice, finding itself hanging on the walls of the hospital in which this film is set!
Apart from the fact that they returned to the present-day after half a dozen period pieces...er...genre spoofs, they also introduced other celebrities into the fold, most prominently Frankie Howerd (who is even top billed here). Usual "Carry On" lead Sidney James had suffered a heart attack before shooting began, and this probably necessitated the introduction of Howerd as well as confining James' character mostly to a hospital bed practically for the film's whole duration! Most of the usual members of the gang are here: the afore-mentioned James (who is here nagged to distraction by wife Dandy Nichols), Kenneth Williams (the feared Dr. Tingle, who himself fears new recruit Windsor!), Charles Hawtrey (as a husband suffering the pregnancy pains felt by his wife?!), Joan Sims (as Howerd's devoted and practically deaf assistant), Hattie Jacques (as the matron who has the hots for Williams!), Barbara Windsor (the new nurse whose busomy figure and skimpy outfits gets every male patients' temperature to boiling point), Jim Dale (as Williams' amiably accident-prone 'rival') , Bernard Bresslaw (as the chap who underwent an appendectomy surgery but stayed on after breaking his leg from falling off the operating table!) and Peter Butterworth (quite wasted as another appendectomy patient); for whatever reason, one of the patients turns out to be The Invisible Man!
As I said before, there is some good stuff in here mostly provided by Howerd (as a charlatan faith healer who injures his backside and misunderstands Williams' diagnosis as having a mere week to live!), Dale (his rooftop antics after misreading Windsor's intentions to sunbathe as a suicide attempt is one of the film's comic highlights) and Bresslaw (who keeps convincing his visiting friend to swap clothes with him so that he can go see an attractive but lonely patient in the women's ward). Even so, the film is definitely unbalanced by having two ultra-campy performers Howerd and Williams letting rip in it (which perhaps explains why the equally effeminate Hawtrey is atypically restrained here). Furthermore, the cruder aspects of the "Carry On" brand of humor, not to mention a more frenzied gag structure, have clearly started to take center stage here to the eventual detriment of the genteel sophistication and genial characterizations displayed in earlier, better films like CARRY ON NURSE itself and CARRY ON TEACHER (1959).