Carry on Dick

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.

I re-watched Carry On Dick on DVD today. I usually agree that this film is a bit of a hit and miss, but i think now that is it very good, up there with Carry On Henry for historicals, not Cleo though.

Sid James is looking older, but he can still pull it off. Critics may say that James was too old to be lusting after someone of Barbara Windsor's age, but the situation the characters are put in, (two highway man/women), you can believe this girl would have a relationship with the elder man because of the work they do together. So i think they work well together in this film.

This is the only film i can think of in the series that starts of pretty dull then gets funnier towards the middle and end. Very good ending with Hattie Jacques on the organ, pumping for all she's worth.

Kenneth Williams and Jack Douglas have good chemistry, but it's really just the same characters Williams and Peter Butterworth played in Don't Lose Your Head. The premise of the film is very similar!

As for the rest of the cast, Peter Butterworth shines in the drag sequence as he ogles over Joan Sims' bosoms. Ms Sims doesn't get much to do, but she's always funny and my favourite of the team. Kenneth Connor is excellent as the ageing Constable, such a great character actor. And Hattie Jacques excells as Miss Hoggett, the nosey housekeeper. Very good in the sequence where she is listening at the door.

The Carry Ons never felt the same after Talbot Rothwell left. There was something no quite right about Behind, England, Emmannuelle or Columbus. I don't think anyone could recapture his style, he was born to write Carry On humour.

The team was also breaking up at this point. Obviously the style was getting tired, and in reality, Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas should have called it a day after this one. The one's that followed were good in places, but never hit the mark.

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.

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.