Carry on Again Doctor
Dir: Gerald Thomas
1969
**
Carry on Again Doctor was the eighteenth of the Carry On series and the third time the story would adopt a medical theme. Carry on Nurse was a huge ten years previously, the franchise had come a long way since then but it was still considered the film that put the series on the map and its success was something the team had wanted to match ever since. Carry On Doctor had a lot going for it, it has some great scenes, features Frankie Howard and makes good use of the hospital theme. It was meant to be the last Carry On film so they really went for it. When it was a big success they decided to continue with the series, although it was very hit and miss from then on. Carry on Again Doctor just feels like a cheap cash in, with two different stories that don't really work together. Jim Dale is a great physical comedian but I don't think he should have lead the film. It worked when he was a junior doctor in Carry on Doctor but his character here is a step back from the previous character, as well as being far too similar. The double entendre and innuendos were a bit cheap and simple and they often didn't make any sense. Hattie Jacques was criminally underused as Matron and this wasn't one of Barbara Windsor's best Carry On outings but Kenneth Williams was on form as leading surgeon Doctor Frederick Carver and Charles Hawtrey was great as his cross-dressing peer Doctor Ernest Stoppidge. I also liked Joan Sims's character, she was always best when in character, rather than just as the nagging wife of Sid's. Sid James plays an odd but interesting role and arrives just in time as the film started to get a bit slow before his arrival. Wilfred Brambell has an odd cameo (complete with Steptoe & Son theme music) and Carry On regular Peter Butterworth is in it for just two minutes, which left me feeling a little cheated if I'm being honest. It is strange how, after eighteen films, that director and producer team Gerald Thomas and Peter Rogers still didn't quite know what worked and what didn't. By this point is was make them quick and release them and start all over the next day, without really ever thinking about where they could go from there. Towards the late 60s and early 70s they made the series into something it wasn't and often got the tone terribly wrong. It's really thanks to the regular performers as to why the films are still held in high regard, Carry on Again Doctor has an awful story and a poor script but the actors are as wonderful as ever.