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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 80647" data-attributes="member: 23">With the three most recent instalments of Cruising, Cabby and Jack there are some major changes in the series.Out go Norman Hudis and Bruce Montgomery; in come Talbot Rothwell and Eric Rogers. For half a dozen instalments - between Regardless and Cleo - the main Carry On series will alternate evenly between black & white and colour. And the definition of what is or is not a Carry On is in quite a fluid place too.The plot of the first colour instalment - Cruising - is reassuringly familiar to anyone familiar with Sergeant or Constable: green recruits have to overcome their clumsiness to prove themselves to their grizzled superior who has something riding on the outcome. Hudis is still on the writing and Montgomery doing most of the music, though there are some (uncredited) Eric Rogers touches which hint at what's to come in the series and smooth over the transition between musicians. In particular the "exotic" flavours sound like Rogers's work: the Middle Eastern and Spanish pieces, for instance, are very similar to what would come in Follow That Camel/Up The Khyber or Abroad. Paired with accompanying scenes in which the characters dress up in stereotypical clothing for each country, it feels like the gang is warming up for the costumed capers that would kick off in earnest with Jack.Despite all the familiarity, this is the first time the core cast has changed so significantly. There's no Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques or Joan Sims. No Terence Longdon, Bill Owen or Joan Hickson. Even reassuringly familiar tertiary faces such as David Lodge and Victor Maddern are nowhere in sight. The only two familiar faces from the first few films are Kenneths Williams and Connor, here outranked by Sid James. Liz Fraser makes her second main series appearance and Esma Cannon also adds familiarity.The casting of Lance Percival, Dilys Laye and Brian Rawlinson seems very organic recently having watched some Carry-Ons-in-all-but-name in which each have appeared. Cruising is the first Carry On where there's a sense that the pieces of this repertory company are interchangeable. It mostly works, but not completely. I have to confess I find it impossible to watch Percival's performance without recasting him in my mind as Charles Hawtrey, for whom his lines were clearly all written. Laye feels more "right" here, her delivery being very close to how I imagine Joan Sims would have played it anyway.It's well documented that Cabby wasn't originally written to be a Carry On, and it does feel like a more traditional, gentle film in many ways and closer to some of the "almost" Carry Ons such as Nurse On Wheels which it immediately follows. There's a sense that this is Rothwell writing in the style of Hudis, though the story is more complex than the Hudis simplicity. Rogers, too, has some of that Montgomery sentiment to his music, balanced out with some quirk, such as Pintpot's frequently recurring motif. The jazzy main theme is a classic too. I think this is one of my the best Carry On scores.It's fascinating to see how nuanced the performances are. Jacques in particular plays a good deal of her scenes as Peg completely straight and the result is the finest Hattie film in the series. There are even moments of pure kitchen sink drama here and it's allowed to play out to maximum effect with no gurning or funny sound effects to try to soften the blow.I suspect this being a non-Carry on film influenced some of the actors who appeared. After the billing malarkey that excluded him from Cruising, Hawtrey accidentally slid back into the series here. He was quite fickle, so that's not to say he wouldn't have returned had this been sold to him as a Carry On - he was still working for Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas here, after all. But I suspect this saved a lot of egos all round. Conversely, I find it difficult to imagine Williams wouldn't have appeared if he'd known this would end up as a Carry On, this being the first of only three films he'd miss in the entire series. Unlike some of the missing faces in Cruising, his absence isn't glaring in this film and there's no sense that someone is standing in for him anywhere. Likewise Joan Sims. The chemistry is between Jacques and Liz Fraser is excellent and it's only as I write this that it occurs to me that this was the first Carry On in which they have any screen time together. Following on from comments made by Hattie's characters in Teacher and Constable, she's given something of a feminist arc here. And when I say "something of", I mean that any true feminist would cringe at the sight of Hattie getting empowered by recruiting young female cab drivers based on the length of their leg or their cup size. Apart from Amanda Barrie's Anthea, the recruits are all one dimensional and bland. And lest we forget, Cabby ends with Peg impregnated - the whole campaign having been fuelled by her desire for blissful domesticity (though to balance it out, the campaign was somewhat successful, with Sid agreeing to her terms). It could generously be said that this started out with good intentions, but any exploration of feminism or even equality within Rothwell's Carry Ons is doomed. Still, poor as it is, at least there's a sense that there were some good intentions behind this. While Cabby objectifies a number of its women, it actually feels like a step up from the nurses stripping to their underwear in Regardless. And it's positively enlightened compared to the ball-busting, bra-burning ugly caricatures that would appear a decade later in Girls.Likewise, Cabby's the ardent unionist - the person who refused to allow Esma Cannon to drive a cab - is a gentler version of the brash and bolshy "everybody out" stereotype that would alienate the core audience in At Your Convenience (a film in which Jacques' character, too, would follow a similar trajectory to Peg).It feels that the Carry Ons became a victim of their own reputation - or title -  past a certain point, but Cabby goes to show what can happen when there is no such expectation placed on it. It's a little odd that a title not originally made as a Carry On and with the absence of a couple of the players I enjoy the most (Williams and Sims) should end up as one of my favourite titles in the series, but there you have it.Jim Dale's entry to the series proper as an expectant father is uncannily similar to his arc in Nurse On Wheels, while Peter Gilmore (one of my favourite second-tier Carry On-ers) is devilishly handsome as a carjacking crook.Having visited many of the locations used in the series on a number of occasions, Cabby also has an added layer of enjoyment being quite location-heavy.I can only imagine that Jack would have come as quite a shock to audiences in 1963. A full-on historical period piece; a direct satire of a specific film and with only two Carry On regulars in lead roles.As with most of the period Carry Ons, there's no denying the film looks wonderful - right from the title card paintings that open it. The sets and the costumes bring a feeling of quality to the series more than any of the seven that preceded it. I'm assuming that both were utilised from other Pinewood productions (in fact I'm assuming Mutiny On The Bounty was actually filmed at Pinewood, which is why Jack was made in the first place).There's no getting around the sparseness of series regulars. Even more than the period setting, it's quite jarring. There's no Hattie, Joan, Sid, Kenneth Connor. Bill Owen has departed the series without ceremony following Cabby. Even Liz Fraser, Dilys Laye and Esma Cannon are nowhere to be seen. Neither do other familiar faces such as Eric Barker or Judith Furse appear.Like Cabby, the less familiar faces make sense in the context of Rogers/Thomas productions. Not only had Juliet Mills taken the lead role in Nurse On Wheels, she'd appeared with Donald Houston in Twice Round The Daffodils. Having watched both films recently, it's easy to understand why they'd be a logical choice for this film. Mills is a perfectly fine romantic lead, nicely bridging the gap between posh birds Shirley Eaton and Angela Douglas. Houston, too, is great here. I'm not sure why neither returned to the series (I hadn't given it much thought, but I suppose Houston's character was in the Sid James mould, which may at least partially explain it).Cribbins is a likeable romantic lead and strikes the right balance, managing to be both hopelessly naïve while remaining charming enough for me to believe that Juliet Mills would find him attractive. While watching, I found myself wondering what the series would have looked like had Cribbins been asked back after his "unprofessional" conduct in Spying. I think he would have worked well.Jim Dale and Peter Gilmore both make their second appearances in small but memorable roles, both hamming it up. Dale in particular seems to be very much enjoying the opportunity to prove himself a character actor at this point, something that there would be less opportunity for when he supplanted Cribbins to become the series' romantic lead. Gilmore is effortlessly menacing in his role as a pirate.Warfare, torture; the on-screen removal of a gangrenous leg and the suggestion of both potential and actual rape make this the grimmest Carry On so far, and probably the darkest entry in the entire series. For much of the time it doesn't feel like a Carry On (even with hindsight), but that doesn't mean it's not a really good film. It was certainly instrumental in broadening the Carry On palette for better or worse.</blockquote>

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