It's incredible to believe that at this early stage, CARRY ON SPYING was already the ninth in the long running series. It's the last of the black and white instalments, and it's an affectionate, often obvious spoof of the James Bond spy era.
Series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques and Joan Sims are all conspicuous by their absence, but Bernard Cribbins returns from CARRY ON JACK and Barbara Windsor appears in her first CARRY ON - and she's marginally less irritating than in latter entries. Kenneth Williams is the real highlight of this one, playing an extraordinarily camp character instead of the usual snobbish twit from earlier films, and he turns every line of dialogue into a highlight.
It's also grand to have Charles Hawtrey in a larger role than usual, before the presence of additional regulars reduced him to little more than cameo appearances. Jokes come in the form of the requisite mistaken identities, cross dressing and other shenanigans, with Eric Barker playing the exasperated superior with aplomb and Jim Dale bagging a more prominent role. The ending, which takes place inside a lair straight out of a Bond film, is memorably silly but the preceding bit in the train is the real highlight.
Series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques and Joan Sims are all conspicuous by their absence, but Bernard Cribbins returns from CARRY ON JACK and Barbara Windsor appears in her first CARRY ON - and she's marginally less irritating than in latter entries. Kenneth Williams is the real highlight of this one, playing an extraordinarily camp character instead of the usual snobbish twit from earlier films, and he turns every line of dialogue into a highlight.
It's also grand to have Charles Hawtrey in a larger role than usual, before the presence of additional regulars reduced him to little more than cameo appearances. Jokes come in the form of the requisite mistaken identities, cross dressing and other shenanigans, with Eric Barker playing the exasperated superior with aplomb and Jim Dale bagging a more prominent role. The ending, which takes place inside a lair straight out of a Bond film, is memorably silly but the preceding bit in the train is the real highlight.