Читать книгу We’re British, Innit: An Irreverent A to Z of All Things British - Iain Aitch - Страница 33

This series of 30 comedic films ran from 1958 to 1978 (let’s ignore 1992’s mirthless disaster Carry On Columbus), creating a uniquely coherent documentation of British tastes, attitudes and humour throughout the period. The films were at their best from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, containing a wonderful blend of self-deprecation, self-aggrandisement, saucy seaside humour, prudery, sex-starved wives, hen-pecked husbands, camp and red-blooded male fantasy. Not every film hit the spot, but any that contained the mix of Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims and Bernard Bresslaw was usually a winner. The series’ finest moment came with Carry On Cleo in 1964, which was filmed on the set of Cleopatra and is memorable for the Kenneth Williams’ line (as Julius Caesar): ‘Infamy, infamy – they’ve all got it in for me.’ Though Sid James (as Mark Antony) also manages to sum up the series’ attitude to foreign languages with the simple expression ‘Blimus!’. Another seminal (quite literally for boys who were reaching puberty at the time) Carry On moment was when Barbara Windsor’s bra flew off during a workout in 1969’s Carry on Camping, which is one of the best-known scenes in British cinema history.