ianlouisiana Review of Carry on Abroad

Carry on Abroad (1972)

"Technical Adviser - Sun Tan Lo Tion." (Rolling Credits).

[7/10 · 28 January 2008]

There are many,many gags in "Carry on Abroad".Some of them,even 35 years later,are very funny,others perhaps ugly,even hurtful to an audience to whom the Music Hall tradition is lost in the mists of time. Mr Jimmy Logan - a brilliant Scottish Comic on the stage - seems almost barbaric,a genuine unregenerate throwback to the worst kind of leering,bottom - pinching,wandering - hands,bottom of the bill low comedian from the seediest of "Lost Empires".Compared to Mr Logan,Sid James comes on like Hugh Grant.You don't have to be a feminist to feel uncomfortable about Mr Logan's performance,but he might complain - like Gloria Swanson - that it's the movies that have got smaller. Contrast that with the defiant and rather poignant portrayal by Miss Joan Sims as Sid James' long - suffering wife.As in "Carry on Doctor",Miss Sims confounds our expectations with a performance of subtlety and depth that would not seem out of place in a 40s Ealing comedy. Charles Hawtrey - in his last "Carry on" - is like a man on Speed; once away from the baleful influence of his mother his behaviour is almost demented.It is a most uncharacteristic turn. As is usual in "Carry ons",the overt sexism is expiated by the eventual triumph of the Female,as nearly all the men are in thrall to women in one way or the other. I must make a special mention of the wonderful Miss June Whitfield. Nearly sixty years of brilliant comedy on wireless,TV and movies,and she shows no sign of slowing down.Although hardly a sex symbol,here she is very winsome as the unfortunate repressed wife of a rampant Kenneth Connor who rediscovers herself in the arms of a not - very - Spanish Ray Brooks. Peter Butterworth,a favourite of mine since his days on children's' television in the early 1950s,is pleasingly manic as the hotel proprietor,although Miss Hattie Jacques' eccentric talents are wasted as his very peculiar wife. The incomparable Miss Barbara Windsor does so well what she does best,and if,as alleged,Sid James was infatuated with her,one could hardly blame him. The "Carry ons" blew hot and cold over the years,but along with "Carry on Dick","Abroad" is one of the last of the good ones.