User reviews

The seaside resort of Fircombe is struggling to attract the tourists, so Sid Fiddler (Sid James) proposes a beauty contest to draw some much needed punters into the town. Getting the inept Mayor (Kenneth Connor) to agree was easy enough, but opposition comes in the form of Augusta Prodworthy (June Whitfield) and her league of feminists.

Lurid, smutty and just about average in the pantheon of the Carry On series. No Kenneth Williams for this one, but a point of interest is that Robin Askwith appears for the only time. Askwith ironically would become the star of the "Confessions" series of film's which would take the sex comedy to a whole new plateau from 1974 onwards. Carry On Girls has its moments, Bernie Bresslaw in drag brings quite a few gags, while Peter Butterworth as a lecherous old man steals the film.

Also pleasing for the franchise faithful is that the Sid James and Barbara Windsor (Hope Springs) pairing gets a nice arc befitting the relationship the pair built up during the series. Beauty contests and feminist whiles are given the treatment in Talbot Rothwell's screenplay, and the dying seaside town in need of a boost has a certain warmth to it (filmed on location in Brighton on England's South Coast). But really it's mild Carry On fare outside of the flesh and double entendres that are laced in humorous stereotypical cheapness. 5/10

Despite the quite entertaining and bubbly contributions from Barbara Windsor, this franchise is now really scraping the bottom of the ideas barrel with this one. Sid James is "Fiddler", a local councillor who manages to convince the town council - under the mayorship of the hopeless "Mayor Bumble" (Kenneth Connor) to agree to let him host a beauty contest. Now this infuriates fellow councillor "Prodworthy" (June Whitfield) and so she attempts to galvanise a woman's lib movement to fight this blatant sexism and put the kibosh on the entire thing. What now ensues are a series of escapades that are, frankly, quite crass, contrived and unfunny. Windsor does bring some fresh air to the thing, but James and Bernard Bresslaw ("Potter") are well off-form, Kenneth Connor only really had one, slightly seedy, style of delivery and that is failing to entertain these days and generally this is a weakly devised and rather clumsy gambol through early 1970s stereotypes peppered with some jokes that can really only be described as naff. There is a donkey, though....

Carry on Girls is usually ranked one of the worst ones of the series, and I probably agree. A lot of the regulars are missing but ironically this one has some of the best material for Sid James and Joan Sims with their romance, the plot is revolved around Sid Fiddler (I know) played by Sid James of course, running a beauty contest. Hence the film title. Obviously there's lots of room for sex related jokes, probably a few too many of them but regardless they're not the best. There's an especially funny scene with Bernard Bresslaw in drag pretending to be one of the contestants and another one where some of the women start fighting, but apart from that I can't really remember anything too memorable or brilliant.

Filmed on location in Brighton, which is a nice change but could have perhaps done with some more shots on the beach and cinematography. But the hotel looks really nice and authentic, probably would guess it's a real hotel.

5/10: Nothing special about this Carry on, but it's not bad

This was a bit poor compared to other Carry On's, all down to the sexual innuendo and sex antics, apparently there was a naked fight between Barbara Windsor and Carol Hawkins which got cut, which would probably have made it worse, why they thought that all the sex antics would make it good I don't know, the actual acting was poor and it was a bit boring, certainly not funny.

Sid James, Barbara Windsor, Joan Sims, Ken Connor, Bernard Bresslaw, June Whitfield, Peter Butterworth, Patsy Rowlands, Joan Hickson (returning after a long gap), Valerie Leon, and Margaret Nolan are the regulars, Hattie Jacques was left out, Charles Hawtrey did not return and Ken Williams refused, unfortunately (or from their point of view fortunate not to be associated with this), they might have improved it. Apparently Charlie was dropped through drinking too much, I don't know why as he was always a big drinker, its probably more to do with the wage demands, they were doing the last few films on the cheap. Sally Geeson did her last of 2, she was also in .....Abroad'. It was also Valerie Leon's last, she probably had enough after this, she went onto a good career including 2 Bond films, she is still at it, now aged 76. Joan Hickson of Miss Marple fame also did her last, she retired in 1993 but passed away in 1998 aged 92.

Of the small/bit role regular actors there was David Lodge ( a great actor elsewhere), Patricia Franklin, Brian Osborne, Marianne Stone, Billy Cornelius, Hugh Futcher, Michael Nightingale, Reg Thomason and Angela Grant, it was Angela's last one, she did 4, starting with Follow That Camel.

Surely it could only get better from this, but we were still in the 70's, so I am not expecting much, and many of the best actors were leaving like rats from a sinking ship.

Carry On Girls was the beginning of when over the top smut entertained the Carry On's, what probably killed off the Carry On series in the end. There's nothing wrong with a bit innuendo however you can go too far with it, the Carry On's were made for a family audience. It was like a pantomime on screen and in pantomime you don't see many extremely crude gags or even nudity. Now I am fan of what they call alternative comedy like "Bottom" but of course there not something I'd probably watch in front of the whole family, however like I said the Carry On's are made for family viewing.

Anyway Carry On Girls is set in the fictional broken down seaside town of Firecombe, which is having problems luring tourists to its town. One of the Councillors Sid Fidler played by of course Sid James, as come up with idea of having a beauty contest based in there town. Sid has already managed to convince the Mayor to go with this idea played by Kenneth Connor, while a rival Councillor Ms Prodworthy played by June Whitfield is complete up against this idea who happens to be running a women's right campaign.

Eventually the contest is given the green light and Sid manages to convince his Girlfriend Connie played by Joan Sims to base the competition within her hotel, though she's got to give away the rooms free to the contestants much to her anger.

Sid later on calls down his mate Peter Potter played by Bernard Bresslaw to help arrange the competition. Eventually all the contestants turn up, one of them being Hope Springs played by Barbara Windsor a previous beauty queen winner who somewhat catches the eye of Sid. The three them all come up with different schemes to make the contest more controversial to get more publicity for the contest. While at the same time Ms Prodworthy and her women's right's group also come up with different schemes to sabotage the contest.

Okay it's not one of the greatest of Carry On plots, the directing of this film looks dirty and seems to be directing in the same style of the other comedy British franchise films which was the Confession films, which at this time was becoming a rival to the Carry On's, and it appears for some reason the Carry On's wanted to start copying. Which if you haven't seen a basically not a comedy for the family put it that way.

Everybody in this is playing there usual role, Sid of course his the scheming dirty old man whose after chasing birds and earning a buck or two. Bernie is of course is Sid's mate who is somewhat a bit more panicky and doubting most of Sid's ideas but of course is somewhat still lured into his ideas, Babs of course eye candy and is forming a relationship with Sid and Joan of course is Sid's girlfriend who owns the hotel who is becoming more jealous of Sid's and Babs relationship and getting more angry of Sid ruining her business.

Sounds like a normal Carry On whats wrong with that? Yeah it is, it's funny places there's some good gags but it just seems to be too crude for a Carry On, especially for a family audience. There is moments in this where it goes to far, especially during a fight scene between Babs and the gorgeous Margaret Nolan, where we see a little bit too much! wow Maggie as certainly got a big pair! anyway that scene does go a little too far, it's a funny scene yeah but as I keep mentioning for a family flick it shouldn't be there, when your watching it with family it becomes quite an awkward scene.

Okay I'm being a bit too negative about this, okay this a funny Carry On. It is crude but it is watchable, it's not maybe quite as crude as say Emmannuellle or England but of course they are simply un watchable. Carry On Girls is probably a right Carry On to watch to a much mature audience, so I wouldn't say this quite a family flick.

As I mentioned it is funny, this is a good British comedy but as a Carry On not the greatest. I admit I've watched Carry On Girls a few times being as it is funny and a perfect film for the lads ;)

Most of the Carry On gang are present though I've got to say absents of both Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey is quite noticeable. Kenneth Williams was unavailable working on a another project, while Hawtrey of course had been sacked from this series, which was probably biggest mistake the series had made.

Anyway as I said Girls is a good comedy, give it a look in as Carry On not it's finest hour. A five out of ten for me.