Carry on Don't Lose Your Head

DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD

Aspect ratio: 1.66:1

Sound format: Mono

During the French Revolution, the villainous Citizen Camembert (a perpetually outraged Kenneth Williams) goes in search of the notorious 'Black Fingernail' (Sid James), an unidentified British aristocrat who's been crossing the English Channel to rescue his French counterparts from the guillotine.

The second and final entry in the long-running series not to feature 'Carry On' in its title due to political fall-out from a change of UK distributor (the first was FOLLOW THAT CAMEL, released earlier the same year), DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD demonstrates yet again that screenwriter Talbot Rothwell was at his best when indulging his fondness for historical burlesque. Sumptuously mounted on various high-blown locations (including Clandon Park and Waddesdon Manor, with interiors filmed at Pinewood Studios), the film's ribald parody of the French Revolution encompasses everything from silly character names (Camembert is the local 'big cheese', aided and abetted by the gormless Citizen Bidet, while the Black Fingernail conceals his true identity under the foppish pseudonym of Sir Rodney Ffing - "with two F's!") to puns, sight gags and lowbrow slapstick. In other words, the formula as before.

But like so many of the better "Carry On"s, the comedy is rooted in a well-developed storyline, augmented by the usual array of flamboyant characters and eccentric supporting players. Highlights include Charles Hawtrey as a jolly French aristocrat, and Joan Sims as Williams' Cockney-spouting sister (Sims and Hawtrey share an unlikely seduction sequence midway through the film which culminates in a terrific 'please yourself' gag). Sid James and Jim Dale are the nominal heroes of the piece, camping it up with affectionate glee, while Peter Butterworth excels as Williams' dimwitted lackey, forever lusting after Sims and shouting: "Equality! Fraternity! Liberty!" (to which Sims retorts: "I don't care about the equalities and the fraternities, but I'm NOT having the liberties!"). But as usual, Kenneth Williams walks away with the picture, overplaying every gesture, emphasizing every double entendre, and milking every gag for all its considerable worth. An absolute comic gem! Director Gerald Thomas keeps the pot boiling throughout, and production values are solid. Watch out for a couple of mistakes which made it into the final print (Williams' hat being knocked by Butterworth in a cramped carriage, and Sims almost falling over whilst admiring a lovely new dress), betraying a rushed production schedule.

Favorite gag: Hawtrey brags to a group of young women that he escaped the guillotine by slaying half a dozen of his captors, and one gushing admirer declares: "What a bloody sight it must have been." Hawtrey, quick as a flash, retorts: "M'dear, if me sword hadn't broken, it'd have been a bloody sight more!" Genius.

I always have enjoyed the Carry On movies, they are a lot of fun and there are some very talented actors in the series. There are some stinkers like England, Emmanuelle and Columbus sure, but there are gems like Screaming(my personal favourite, Cleo, Up the Khyber and Camping. Don't Lose Your Head is up there with the best entries of the series. For me it wasn't perfect, Jim Dale is wasted and Jacqueline's harp scene is cringe-worthy. However, it is tightly directed, never dull and is beautifully designed. The music is also suitably rousing, and while simple the story spoofs The Scarlet Pimpernel in a very sharp and hilarious manner. The writing and the cast though were what made Don't Lose Your Head as good as it was. Right from the names, brilliant comic incidents and entendres the gags are plentiful and the memorable quotes endless, it is really a very wittily and hilariously written film. The bloody sight exchange is a scream in particular. Sidney James is superb(even when camping it up he still manages to make for a dashing fop), of the Carry On series I think he has only been better in Khyber. Kenneth Williams steals every scene and possibly even the entire film, his comic timing is spot on and it is worth seeing him for his facial expressions alone. Charles Hawtrey has some great lines and delivers them with utter comic conviction, while Joan Sims also excels as a very aptly-named character. Overall, very good and one of the best of an entertaining series. 8/10 Bethany Cox

CARRY ON DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD was made at the peak of the popularity of the Carry On films, where they could afford to splash out on lavish sets, costumes and locations in movies set in various historical eras. It's a pretty typical entry in the film series, and not the most appealing one I've seen; by now, at least half of the jokes were feeling quite stale, to me, and not a patch on the CARRY ONs of seven, eight years before.

That being said, there's still much to enjoy here, and aficionados of the films will be in their element. A delightfully weaselly Kenneth Williams camps it up as Citizen Camembert, Robespierre's right-hand man whose job it is to outwit the Black Fingernail, a masked folk hero who keeps on freeing aristocrats from the guillotine.

Sid James bags the role of the Fingernail and appears to be in his element, with plenty of his trademark dirty laughter and energy to spare. He's supported by a virtually wasted Jim Dale, whose role seems to be entirely redundant, and Joan Sims in one of those nagging wife type roles she always seemed to occupy in later years. The best cast members are Charles Hawtrey as the fey Duc de Pommfrit and Peter Butterworth as the befuddled Citizen Bidet.

The gags set in and around the guillotine are by far my favourite parts of this movie, although there's a rousing and elaborate sword-fight at the climax to get your teeth into. CARRY ON DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD also contains one of my favourite gags of all time: Hawtrey is brought a letter just as he's about to be beheaded, and he tells the messenger to drop it into the basket where he'll "read it later". Class stuff.

The plot should have made this one of the better Carry on films, especially when you hear the premise. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the jokes to be unsatisfactory and not very memorable along with the rather one dimensional characters who all seem the same. It was fun to see Sid James along with Kenneth Williams playing the baddie but apart from that it's only a below average film.

4/10: Could have been great, but isn't and it is dull.

Marking a distinct production change from the first twelve and originally released without the iconic prefix, Don't Lose Your Head sees the team raising a hearty two-fingered salute to Madame Guillotine and the entire kingdom of France. A gloriously vulgar romp, the script is rife with iconic wordplay, puns, one-liners and patented double entendres. The film is easily one of the most lavish of the series, a trait that tends to be shared with most historical Carry Ons, with some excellent production values; the sets and costumes belie the low budget. More plot-heavy than most the story drives the narrative rather than the gags, in this sense, it is a more specific parody than the broader joke-led scripts of many other films. Bolstered by a unique style of swordplay in a prolonged swashbuckling finale amongst the general saucy mayhem, Don't Lose Your Head benefits from a cast on top form having the best of times as they carry on chopping their way through history, almost playing like a feature-length episode of Blackadder the Third.