Roommates (1961) User Reviews

No Need to Carry On

[boblipton · 6/10 · 20 October 2018]

Take the series formula for DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (including James Robertson Justice as the tyrannical authority, of course), change the setting from a hospital to a music school and swap out director Ralph Thomas for his little brother Gerald and you have this movie, an amusing if formulaic comedy.

Gerald Thomas was best known for directing three billion CARRY ON movies and TV episodes, and there are a couple of differences in the handling of the movie. In the DOCTOR movies, there was a central character, originally played by Dirk Bogarde. This movie is far more an ensemble affair, and the director uses several of his CARRY ON regulars to good effect. Eric Barker is particularly amusing as a vague composition teacher who tells Paul Massie to take up golf so they can have something to talk about during lessons.

The actors playing students seem a little long in the tooth for students, but like all good comedies, it's more about the performances than making sure people look exactly like their characters should (although putting glasses on Liz Fraser to make her look more intellectual than her usual dizzy blonde character is a reasonable effort). All in all, Thomas directs a movie that is nicely placed in tone between the two popular series.

"His Bach is worse than his bite!"

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 5 January 2020]

Although largely the work of the 'Carry On' team (it was a pet project of producer Peter Rogers') it actually feels more like one of the 'Doctor' films with bluer jokes - shot like them in pretty colour - and dealing with the travails of a mature-looking bunch of students in the days when students wore jackets & ties and £4 a week seemed a steep rent. And, of course, there's the presence of James Robertson Justice and University College Hospital standing in for the London Academy of Music and the Arts instead of St.Swithin's (while Leslie Phillips later switched to the 'Doctor' series).

This is possibly the only movie on which the composer is also the author of the script, Bruce Montgomery (briefly glimpsed conducting Handel's 'Messiah' in one sequence) being the real name of the eminent crime writer Edmund Crispin whose only screenplay this was.

Pleasant 90 minutes from the Carry On Team

[Maverick1962 · 6/10 · 29 March 2020]

Not the rollicking comedy that it should have been from the legendary Carry On team but enjoyable enough to pass an hour and a half. A slight story involving classical music students from 1960, trying to win a scholarship. Hampered by the overbearing tutor, the ebullient James Robertson Justice, who else, the students get into all sorts of panic situations. Leslie Phillips, who I met to get his autograph when I was a boy and so have always had a soft spot for, is the central character here. He sparks off the ever lovely Liz Fraser and they form the pair with the most chemistry. Jennifer Jayne and Paul Massey are a bit dull as the other couple. Carry On standbys crop up regularly to inject some much needed laughs. We see David Lodge, Sid James, Lance Percival, Esma Cannon, Joan Hickson, Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Eric Barker and even Jill Ireland a couple of years before she swanned off to Hollywood with Charles Bronson. I think the main let down is the rather staid classical music setting for a comedy of this type and less emphasis could have been applied to that and a bit more slapstick, would have made it a better film. Still, ok for me if only for Liz Fraser, Leslie Phillips and Sid James. Oh and Esma Cannon as a really funny deaf landlady.

Limp Britcom

[Penfold-13 · 5/10 · 7 September 1999]

Peter Rogers produces, Gerald Thomas directs, it's got Sid James and Kenneth Williams in it, but it's not a Carry On.

It's got James Robertson Justice as the irascible professor who disguises his real opinions of his students by being offensive.

So it's a Doctor In The House movie, except that it's set in a music college (which happens to look immensely like University College London on the outside, and which has a dead ringer for the Conway Hall as its main theatre).

JRJ is fun to watch, but this is very drab fare indeed.

Carry on musician in the house

[richard-meredith27 · 4/10 · 20 September 2005]

I feel desperately sorry for every one involved in this film. It might be the only film that has James Robertson Justice crossing swords with Kenneth Williams. And it must have been a good wheeze to squeeze a 'Carry-on' cast into a college plot that could have, with the necessary alterations, been a 'Doctor in the house' film.

The script is written by Bruce Montgomery, film and light music composer (he wrote the original Carry-On theme) but it collapses under the demands of episodic sub-plots that effectively wreck the two main plots- Leslie Philips being taken for a ride by Music publisher Sid James, and the rivalry between the main characters for a music scholarship.

Bright spots? Yes, Esmee Cannon steals the show (again) as a deaf landlady and Eric Barker's mad professor. But that's it. However, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing Montgomery finished the script. At this time he was sliding into alcoholism, trying to live down the huge success of his early detective novels (All of which have yet to be filmed!).

Takes one to know one...

[LCShackley · 8/10 · 21 February 2013]

I should confess right away that I spent two years as a student in a conservatory, and have spent all my life hanging around with musicians. I'm sure that influenced my positive opinion about this movie, and I can understand why other reviewers who don't share my background don't find it funny.

I knew I was going to enjoy it when the opening credits featured cartoons by the inimitable Gerard Hoffunung. The cast list also promised a host of Britain's most amusing character players. The script and score are by Bruce Montgomery, a fine mystery writer and film composer. And how odd that the opening scene outside the music school used the exact same filming location as was used for the hospital in "Doctor in the House." (Not to mention that the doctor's nemesis also plays the students' nemesis here, too.)

Of course, as others have pointed out, most of the actors are too old for their "student" roles, and the plot is fairly thin (but typical for a sitcom). What's funny for me are all the jokes and situations that any working musician will have had to deal with: overbearing teachers, time-wasting teachers, blabbing conductors, over-confident student hot-shots, conflict between "serious" and "pop" music, etc. If you don't know who Barbirolli and Sargent are, you'll miss a couple of jokes. (And you might not also catch the "skeletons on a tin roof" joke from Sir Thomas Beecham.) There's even a tip of the hat to Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, if you look carefully at the music school sign.

The 90 minutes breezed by, and the HD version available on Amazon Prime looked pristine on my iPad. Recommended highly for musical people; and fairly highly for fans of mid-century British comedy. Kenneth Williams alone is worth the price of admission.

Good cast, poor film

[bob the moo · 29 February 2004]

A group of students at an elite music school decide to share a flat in order to cut their living costs and have somewhere to practice together. They get into quite a few scraps and adventures, including impersonating a celebrity quintet. However when Mervyn Hughes accidentally sells a catchy pop tune to an advertising agency he risks losing his scholarship unless he and his friends can raise the money to buy the rights back.

With an impressive sounding Carry-On cast featuring quite a few famous names from British comedy I was quite looking forward to this being a gently amusing little piece. Sadly I was fooled and this film turned out to be as weak and unfunny as you can imagine. The plot sees some of the oldest students I've seen sharing a flat; from here the plot has a few adventures, before splitting to be about Hughes' drunken mistakes and Malcolm's attempts to win a conducting prize. None of it really engages and, more importantly, none of it is ever really funny.

It's a shame cause you can see what they are trying to do, but none of it works and the talented cast are left high and dry without anything that is more than sporadically funny. Phillips does his usual stuff but he isn't that good; Fraser is cast as a dream girl but I have never found her looks to be worthy of that sort of role. The rest of the students seem quite bland and unmemorable - making it hard to care. Justice is OK and has good screen presence and the support cast includes cameos from James, Williams and Dale but they don't do much.

Overall this is a pretty big disappointment. The plot doesn't engage but that wouldn't matter if I'd laughed at least once or twice - but I didn't. A talented cast may draw viewers to this film but I can guarantee that they won't be enough to keep you watching. A real shame - puts paid to the idea that British comedy of the period could do no wrong.

Carry On in all but name

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 17 July 2020]

RAISING THE WIND is one of a number of British comedies made during the late '50s and early '60s that were basically CARRY ON films in all but name: same ensemble cast members, same directors and writers. This one's about a group of music students and their escapades as they flat share, struggle to earn their keep, and compete for a coveted prize. It's mainly a case of the usual drunken escapades and cameo appearances from amusing stars, while the main players all tackle familiar parts for the most part: Leslie Phillips as the playboy, Kenneth Williams as the stuffy antagonist; only Liz Fraser, playing a bookworm rather than a sexpot, tries something different. It's not bad, but there's no disguising the fact that the jokes are middling rather than hilarious, with a couple of exceptions.

Really awful film

[patherwill · 1/10 · 16 June 2022]

When I see someone write that THIS is 'a real fav of mine' I really feel very sad for them. I know reviews are simply personal opinions but thie is absolutely dire because from the front to rear end of this I honestly never laughed, not once. A pretty good cast just wasted with this tripe!

Raising the Wind

[henry8-3 · 3/10 · 11 August 2021]

A group of musical students at the London Music Academy decide the move in together and in turn have various bits of fun and misadventure.

This is a lighthearted romp a la early Carry On - same director and producer. However despite the pleasure of being in the company of such British greats as Leslie Phillips, James Robertson Justice, Kenneth Williams and Sid James this is a rather flat affair and largely devoid of any real laughs.

Hitting the Right note

[tasscif · 8/10 · 23 May 2011]

It,s Interesting that the reviews here criticising it are British and the one who gives it the thumbs up is American and I agree with him this film is very good. It,s less smutty than the carry on films and not really slapstick It,s just good clean fun.

This may not be the greatest film ever made but it is good. A great cast and they do deliver they Hit the Right Note It,s funny and well written, Jill Ireland appears in one of her first roles as does Jim Dale Who after this film got the recommendation of Kenneth Williams to join the Carry on team, (His first Carry On, Cabby, wasn,t originally a carry on).

It seems that the British are the first to run British films down, thats sad.

Barely raises a laugh

[ianlouisiana · 5/10 · 22 April 2008]

Leslie Phillips isn't funny.Somehow he has become an icon of British movie comedy in the forty odd years since "Raising the wind" by portraying himself as the lecher's lecher in an inordinate number of films none of which have been improved by his presence. Here he appears as a student(albeit a rather elderly one)at a music college.In his spare time he writes pop songs that attract publishers Sid James and Lance Percival(in one of his better roles).This rather patronising attitude to popular music is extended to jazz when the students knock off a few choruses of cod dixieland in their spare time,all grinning wildly and "real gone" in a toe - curlingly embarrassing sequence. Of course "serious" music is their Raison d'etre,mostly I must admit of the pot - boiling variety.Some good old musicians' jokes are trotted out as the tyros go on the road during the vacations,but the ones written into the storyline are mostly pretty feeble. Messrs Justice,Barker and Keen do their familiar things entertainingly enough but Paul Massie is wildly miscast and Liz Fraser is wasted. Only Kenneth Williams rises above the mediocre in an inspired scene where the orchestra rebels against him and speeds up on "Overture to William Tell" to the extent that he collapses on the rostrum into the pit. Unfortunately the male and female leads are so weak that their fate soon becomes a matter of supreme indifference to the audience and with little else to hold the attention the film fizzles out long before the end. Rather like a mausoleum housing a long - dead specimen of British comedy "Raising the wind" may have a certain ghoulish attraction,but nearly everyone in it - even Leslie Phillips - has been in far funnier movies.

So Bad I Though I Was Dead

[Planar_Being · 1/10 · 22 June 2022]

Never thought I'd write this sentence, but Kenneth Williams was the only bright spot in this stinking pile of ordure. Found the reference to this in the documentary "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Composers." The fast-forward key on my keyboard is almost worn out by now.

Great Fun!

[parcstar · 8/10 · 3 March 2007]

I just read three dismal reviews of this film from people with no sense of humor--obviously. Raising The Wind is much more clever than many of the Carry On films or other British comedies from the classic period. Of course, as a former music student, it's possible that I identify with it more than most, but I have shown it to others who laughed as much as I did. Once to an audience of 50, but then a comedy is always better with an audience, at least if it's timing is good, as in this case. When the orchestra ran away (speeded up) as Kenneth Williams attempted to show off his dominance as a great conductor, the audience had hysterics. There was rarely a better cast than this, and the characters are appealing. It's one of those films I wish I could live in. Give it a chance.

With this cast, you know it's a Peter Thomas production

[jameselliot-1 · 8/10 · 21 May 2021]

A fun movie that is very underrated and underappreciated. When I see all of the familiar faces, I'm always amazed at how many movies these performers made for so many years. They worked non-stop. Fraser and Jayne were knockouts and Leslie Phillips was the king.

A whimsical, beautifully composed comedy which rarely misses a beat!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 9/10 · 17 August 2021]

Mercurial film-making talent Gerald Thomas, the iconic 'Carry On' impresario directs an unexpectedly spry and witty 60s musical comedy which proved to the finest in his cinematic Laugh-Time! The breezy, bon-mottled script by gifted composer Bruce Montomery is an unexpectedly clever, effervescent delight, being no less brightly performed by a luminous cast of sterling film & TV favourites, including an especially colourful performance by the avuncular character actor James Robertson Justice who is on splendidly Stentorian form as the imperious Sir Benjamin Boyd, making the most of his deliciously acid monologues! A whimsical, beautifully composed, altogether soulful comedy which rarely misses a beat! Encore! Encore!

raising the wind...a real fav of mine

[gorytus-20672 · 8/10 · 19 March 2022]

March 2022

I have watched this film many times and it continues to be a real favourite of mine.

The cast is typically wonderful, starring Leslie Phillips, James Robertson Justice, Liz Fraser, Eric Barker, Kenneth Williams, Lance Percival, Sid James, David Lodge and Esme Cannon amongst others.

Very likeable, Liz Fraser is particularly good in this one and James Ribertson Justice plays well...James Robertson Justice..

The film centres around a bunch of music students and has the same feel as the Doctors films except they were medical students and these are music students.

Check it out

8.5 musical instruments out of 10.