Carry on Dick

The Carry Ons had been getting progressively ruder as the years passed, but this line of dialogue from Carry On Dick, the last film to feature the 'classic' cast, still had me doing a double take. I couldn't remember it being quite so near the knuckle. But as undeniably coarse and unsophisticated as much of the humour is, and despite an over-reliance on Sid James trademark guffaws and saucy giggles from Babs Windsor, the gang's version of the story of Dick Turpin still succeeds in being a lot of delightfully un-PC fun.

If the idea of an ageing Sid James as dashing highwayman 'Big Dick' isn't silly enough for you, he's assisted by Peter Butterworth and Barbara Windsor, neither of whom would strike much terror into the the heart of even the most fearful of travellers. Tasked with catching the lovable masked rogues are Captain Desmond Fancey (Kenneth Williams) and Sergeant Jock Strapp, who have gained vital information about their quarry that might help them: Turpin has a distinguishing birthmark on his "insert suggestive sound effect here"...

Broad comedy, characters with daft names, innuendo, Barbara Windsor's top flying open, Joan Sims doing her French accent—it's all there, making this Historical romp predictable fare but entertaining nonetheless.

Notorious highwayman Dick Turpin disguises himself as the Reverend Flasher to avoid detection and terrorises the countryside with his gang

Sid James plays Dick Turpin in his last Carry on, and he's surrounded by the usual team members, with the exception of Charles Hawtrey. It's got some good one liners and funny scenes, though some of jokes can be repetitive, and it lacks the sharpness and energy of the peak years. Still it's fun. With such a legendary cast and great direction, it would be hard to get a limp Carry on entry.

CARRY ON DICK is one of the last in the long-running series and indeed the last proper CARRY ON film to feature the likes of Sid James, Barbara Windsor, and many others of the core team. It's also a last gasp for their historical romps (the previous of which was CARRY ON HENRY), and it's as low brow and crude as the title would suggest.

It's a shame to see that the scripts by this stage had become so puerile because the cast were clearly still game for a laugh and you get a feeling of wasted talent. James is as irresistible as ever, playing a DOCTOR SYN-style figure masquerading as a clergyman by day and acting the highwayman by night, and there are fairly substantial roles for Bernard Bresslaw and an on-form Barbara Windsor. Sad then that about halfway through you realise the script is a complete rip-off of the earlier CARRY ON DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD, only inferior in every respect.

It's been said that writer Talbot Rothwell had a breakdown while authoring the script for CARRY ON DICK, which would understandably be his last film for the franchise, and his paucity of imagination is more than evident. There are tired phallic jokes galore, along with one raunchy scene following another. Only a few moments offer genuine laughs, but it's nevertheless a treat to see the pros going through the old routines one last time.

This film appears to be heavily influenced by Carry on Don't Lose Your Head, as it is similar in a number of aspects but with slight tweaks. To me, at least, it appears that Sid James was beginning to lose his touch here. He died two years later, this was his final role in the Carry Ons and he isn't as convincing here as he usually was in previous instalments. Kenneth Williams is fine but is given barely anything to do. Joan Sims is good in her role though. Bernard Bresslaw also gives a solid performance though he's underused. The script is pretty weak and there's a surprisingly high amount of jokes about, well, the title gives you a clue. There's some good individual gags here and there but it's mostly rather unfunny with weak dialogue. I think it could have been better than what it was but it's watchable at least.

To be honest, I struggled with this a bit. It all centres on "Capt. Fancey" (Kenneth Williams) on the hunt for the legendary highwayman "Dick Turpin" - aka "Big Dick". Sadly, that's about the level of the rather crass and banal humour that pervades the rest of this pretty mediocre costume drama. The more "Carry On" films I watch, the more I do realise just how much Joan Sims contributed and here she shines as "Madame Desirée", but the rest of the cast seem content to take us down a rather childishly written path of stereotypes and slapstick and through a story that is a poor relation of "Doctor Syn" (1937). This franchise is reaching it's end now, the originality and playful humour of those made ten years ago has been replaced by an almost bawdy form of in-your-face comedy that really isn't anyone's finest work. Sorry, but I thought that this was quite poor.