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Reviews
Carry on Camping (1969)
That'll be a pound then.
Fantastic Carry-on-Noir (an overlooked sub-genre that includes Carry on Screaming and Carry On at your Convenience). The strong main plot romps along nicely driven by excellent performances by Lotharios Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw. However the real interest lies in the characters of Charlie Muggins (Hawtrey's finest performance?), Joan Fussey (Joan Sims) and Peter Potter (bravo Terry Scott). Exploring issues from the unbearable constraints of monogamous relationships in post 60's Britain to the working class rejection of pastoral values the trio act their hearts out in a triumvirate unparalleled in modern cinema let alone Carry On movies(although Mutiny On the Buses' Reg/Olive/Jack comes close).
Epic performances like these sometimes overshadow the strong ensemble cast. Kudos to Peter Butterworth's deft Josh Fiddler, Hattie Jacques understated Miss Haggard and Babs Windsor's excellent pair of perky norbs.
First class satire.
Holiday on the Buses (1973)
Multi faceted work of considerable depth.
Vastly underrated 60's comedy. Ostensibly a light hearted saucey romp away from the confines of the bus depot 'holiday' has an often overlooked subtext questioning British values in a time of looming crisis. The relationship between lovable rogues Jack and Stan and the tragi-comic figure of Blakey hints at industrial strife and a questioning of the class structure in post 60's UK (note how Blakey's 'status' fails to save him in the face of the wrath of his Oxbridge educated bosses). Olive's brave but ultimately doomed attempts at addressing the marital imbalance with husband Arthur is deeply moving and a bleak vision of the gains made by feminists a decade earlier. The film features possibly the finest performance of character actor Arthur Mullard's career. His role as Wally Briggs culminating in the dance tutor scene with Blakey is laden with homo-erotic imagery, a brave move given the intended audience. Excellent stuff.