A Study of the Relationship Between the Longevity of the Carry On Film Series (1958-1978) and the Shifting Cultural and Economic Landscape of British Cinema
James Chapman suggests that the longevity of the Carry On films came from the production team’s ability to ‘negotiate the changing economic and cultural landscape of British cinema between 1958-1978 (2012: 100). Evaluate this suggestion with reference to one or two Carry On films.
The Carry On films were a series of thirty irreverent, farcical British comedies released between 1958 to 1978, all produced by Peter Rogers and directed by Gerald Thomas. However, as O’Hara (1997: 81) suggests, the films “have not endeared themselves to critics or intellectuals”; particularly amongst feminists for their objectification of women and amongst the political left for reactionary views of working class relationships. Yet, they have found a place in British cinema history and remain popular, still being shown on network television within the United Kingdom. Within this essay, I will be focusing on two particular case studies of the Carry On series: Carry On Sergeant (Thomas, 1958) and Carry On Girls (Thomas, 1973). I have chosen these texts as they were released in very different cultural climates and promote different aspects of the Carry On tradition. This is something I will comment on with reference to key readings from film scholars such as James Chapman and Andrew Medhurst. More specifically, I have chosen Carry On Sergeant as it marks the importance of both economic and cultural decisions that would go on to influence the entire series of texts from the beginning. The film was released in 1958, the same year as the start of the British New Wave and there are connections between the two that I will highlight later. It is important to establish that during the time the Carry Ons began, “[t]he moral attitudes of British cinema audiences were changing fast. The new generation of teenagers and young single adults that dominated cinema audiences of the late 1950s was ready to challenge the moral values and cultural subservience of their parents” (Porter, 2009: 273). Similarly, to Sergeant, I have chosen Carry On Girls because it still contains some substantial cultural commentary. However, it’s tone and overall depiction of the counter-culture causes it to feel dated and shows how the films began to lose their audience. In addition, it was released in a time when cinema was suffering in Britain; this means the economic circumstances also begin to show how these films lost prominence. Within this essay, I aim to discuss how the Carry On films went from financially successful to box office failures and how their social commentary had direct implications upon that with relevant support from voices on British comedy. I also aim to offer some other reasons from these sources about why the Carry Ons were successful and why they eventually failed.
Firstly, I will focus on Carry On Sergeant, the first film released in the Carry On series. The text is a part of Chapman’s proposed three phases of Carry On which were written by Norman Hudis between 1958 and 1962. They are “characterised broadly by a social realist mode of comedy and by a largely consensual outlook that challenges but preserves social structures and institutional values” (Chapman, 2012: 100). As noted in the introduction, Sergeant was released in 1958, in a time where the kitchen-sink realism films of the British New Wave and ‘Angry Young Men’ were coming to the forefront of British cinema. The Carry Ons begin here, a tradition of reflecting the cinema industry and, as such, the British appetite for such exploits. Cull (2002: 96) summarises this well by stating that “[w]here the source films were embedded in screen history, the expected material could be blended with allusions to recent box office hits”. In this particular case, they also took advantage of another popular mode of cinema that was also intricately linked to British culture. Rayner (2007: 72) notes: “[t]he production of numerous post-war comedy films using military settings is unsurprising, given the continuance of compulsory national service until 1959. However, their topicality may also be related to a surfeit of war films in circulation, leading to the genre’s evolution into a phase of spoof and satire”. The text leans into popular war films of the time such as The Dam Busters (Anderson, 1955)but more importantly addresses societal concerns over conscription. This was in a time where often young men, of any class, where enlisted or drafted into compulsory national service – often the military. Indeed, “Sergeant is about conscription rather than war, and about the ways in which individuals will swing the lead” (Harper & Porter, 2003: 194). This text reflects that with a menagerie of British stereotypes and characters from the stern general, to the upper-class posh-boy to the working-class rock and roll fanatic and forcing them to work together in a unit. “Fading notions of traditional masculinity were alluded to in Carry On Sergeant” (Gerrard, 2016: 219) also, as it featured the effeminate man played by Charles Hawtrey, who would go on to play similar characters in many more of the Carry On entries. This is yet another significant cultural comment, as this text is released years before traditional forms of masculinity would first be challenged. Hawtrey’s character is just as much a part of the group as any other man in the text. In addition to all of this, there are elements of the film pointing towards the role of women in post-war Britain. Within Sergeant, the lead character has been called up for conscription on his wedding day; “it was necessary to manoeuvre his new wife into close proximity to the barracks; when the film was released in 1958, post-war pressures on women to remain at home and release jobs for men were only just beginning to lift; the media still solemnly debated whether married women should ‘go out to work’. His bride, however, (Shirley Eaton) promptly joins the NAAFI as a canteen helper” (Gray, 2005: 98). Throughout all of this the film, it both challenges traditional modes of comedy to apply to new audiences whilst maintaining the status quo. The best example of this is the fact that the military sergeant wins a bet for his squadron being the best, as the men learn to work together to please an authority figure with great prestige in British culture. However, it simultaneously inserts innuendo and openly allows both men and women to desire sex, with the leading couple hoping to consummate their marriage. “The British attitude to sex has always been presented on film as a combination of round-eyed prurience and deep-rooted embarrassment” (Barber, 2013: 116). Here it is shown as natural, and a place for comedy to take advantage of.
Moving on from the cultural side of Chapman’s argument, I will now discuss the economic significance of Carry On Sergeant. and how the production costs and eventual box office success would be the foundation for the very popular series of films. Importantly, “Carry On Sergeant was supported by the National Film Finance Corporation, which agreed a loan for half the cost of the film provided the total budget did not exceed £80,000” (Chapman, 2012: 103). This is a remarkably low figure, even in 1958. As the film was produced, Thomas and Rogers would keep tight control over that budget and what resulted was a “final audited cost of £67,714.19” (Chapman, 2012: 103). As such, the text came in way under budget, meeting the requirements to fulfil the loan granted. This is likely due to the tight shooting schedule Thomas and Rogers maintained and a recurring cast and crew that would collaborate more effectively with time. The focus on maintaining a low budget is something that would be retained throughout Chapman’s proposed first phase. When Sergeant was then released, it was hugely successful with British audiences, becoming “the third top grossing film in the UK that year, and was quickly followed by Carry On Nurse (Thomas, 1959) – the biggest British film of 1959 – which was also successful in the United States and Europe” (Kerry, 2012: 174). This financial success confirmed an appetite from British audiences for comedy texts amongst the more socially realist British New Wave texts and war dramas.
Following the success of Hudis’ stint as writer in the first phase of the Carry On film, Chapman’s proposed second phase would move towards genre parody. The modes of comedy leant more into fantasy and innuendo, primarily due to the changing of writers from Hudis to Talbot Rothwell. The budgets of the genre spoofs would become in excess of £200,000 (Chapman, 2012: 107), primarily due to growing inflation rates. As a result, the production costs increased, and the crew required more pay. These films were still successful financially, with “Carry On Camping (Thomas, 1969) becoming the highest-grossing film in the series since Carry On Nurse” (Chapman, 2012: 109). However, when it came to the third phase of texts into the 1970s, things changed. These higher budgets remained but the films were losing touch with audiences and began to struggle at the box office with other British comedies taking their attention and cinema produced outside of the UK growing in popularity. Indeed, the low-budget comedy was one of the only genres to maintain any place at the box office in a time when cinema audiences were falling. Television was growing in popularity and investment in film within the UK was dropping as Edward Heath came into power. However, it was other innuendo-laden and sexually permissive texts such as Confessions of a Window Cleaner (Guest, 1974) and On the Buses (Booth, 1971)that were drawing audiences in. Dacre makes an astute observation, particularly after the loss of Rothwell as the writer for the Carry Ons in 1974, that “[o]ther companies put together more explicit sex-romp comedies, notably the Confessions films and the Adventures films with which the ageing Carry On team could not hope to compete” (Dacre, 2009: 113). This left the Carry On pictures of the 1970s in a place where they had to rely on their cultural relevance to make their money.
Carry On Girls was a part of Chapman’s third and final phase of Carry On which “was less stable, as the films alternated between the realist and fantasy modes. Nevertheless, there is an underlying trend throughout the later films as they respond to the new culture of permissiveness emerging in the 1970s” (Chapman, 2012: 101). As alluded to, this phase seemed to transition into a distinctly different cinematic tradition by the time that Carry Ons, and moreover, in literal synch, the British wave seemed to fall out of favour with audiences. Now, seemingly wanting to embrace the swing of the period and the Technicolor sexual liberation that came with it; the British audience and film industry moved beyond the stigma of repressed sexualisation into an era of Women’s Liberation and second wave feminism. This film is a reactive text, yet not in the way that Sergeant is. Sergeant was inspired by the British New Wave and the popularity of the war genre. Girls was focused much more on the anxieties of the British public at the time, rather than maintaining a status quo. This sparks a particularly interesting parallel between Sergeant and Girls. On one hand there is Chapman’s (2012:111) argument that “the 1970s Carry Ons were arguably more in touch with the zeitgeist than at any time since Carry On Sergeant. They began to address topical issues such as trade union militancy and even feminism”. The film openly addresses second wave feminism and shows a group of women fighting against a beauty competition taking place; arguably reminiscent of the 1970 Miss World protests. This gives them spotlight and as they succeed, should paint them as the heroes of this text. However, there is the other viewpoint that the text is a sexist and homophobic one. Feminist writer, Binard (2016: 1) points out that “[h]istorians and founders of the British Women’s Liberation Movement consider that the year 1970 marked the start of the movement”. The movement gained traction over the next few years with the influential and vital feminist magazine, Spare Rib, being published in 1972. By the time 1973 had come around, second wave feminism and Women’s Liberation had become a much more accepted part of society. It is worth pointing out that feminism was not an immediately successful movement and required much protesting and progression for equal rights. Feminist theorists would reflect that “[i]n the same way as the suffragettes had been stigmatised as ‘unnatural’ women, second-wave feminists have been portrayed as ‘bra burners’, sexually frustrated ugly man-hating individuals (spinsters or lesbians)” (Binard, 2016: 12). This is quite literally what happens in this text, their ritual involves burning a bra and it shows an offensive stereotype of a lesbian woman, who is mocked ‘for dressing like a man’. Feminist ideologies are clearly not replicated even more overtly in Carry On Girls, as “protestors carry banners that say, ‘Women’s Lib: Equality or Bust’ (male response – “I’ll take bust every time”)” (Medhurst, 1992: 18). Councillor Prodworthy, the ‘ringleader’ of the feminist group in the text, can easily be seen as the villain, ruining the raucous fun and wild antics of the men in the text. The depiction of these women shows truly just how much the Carry Ons no longer had the effective social commentary they once had; though there would be another five films between 1974 – 1978, it marked the limited time that this series had left in the public eye. This contradicts Chapman’s argument as the films had arguably lost touch culturally, something Girls would lean on heavily. However, as the series was successful enough to continue for another five years, it directly implies that there are other factors contributing to the longevity of the Carry On series.
In conclusion, as Chapman suggests, the Carry Ons did have an increased longevity because they capitalised on audience’s desires, took advantage of the moving industry landscape and remained financially successful for the majority of the series. As the series could no longer produce the films on low budgets like Sergeant and Nurse, they relied entirely on the cultural importance and as the 1970s drew nearer they began to feel more and more out of touch. This is noted well by MacKillop & Sinyard (2003: 10) when they assert that “The Carry Ons degenerated into raucousness and camp, but at the beginning they were unpretentious observant comedy”. The failed reboot of the series in 1992 with Carry on Columbus (Thomas, 1992)only proved how the series had fallen out of favour with audiences over time, as the British public had progressed past the society it portrayed, and the British, lewd comedy had lost its territory in the marketplace. The films have become an incredibly important part of British cinema history because of their successful period, however. “The Carry Ons managed, on remarkably low budgets and with great consistency and ingenuity, to track the changes from consensus to permissive liberalism; […] they actually reflected the period’s cultural changes with surprising accuracy” (Porter & Hunter, 2012: 10). This quote supports the argument that it was much more the reflections on society and culture rather than financial efficiency that allowed the Carry Ons to continue for so long. The texts relied on popular genres at the times of their release and more overt commentary on ideas of post-war life and second wave feminism as highlighted in the case study texts. Viewpoints from those such as Huxley who states that the “Carry On films survived for over twenty years largely by trespassing on the boundaries of sexual taboos” (Huxley, 2005: 280) simply do not take enough notice of the other factors highlighted throughout this essay. The familiar tone, censor pushing British comedy and recurring cast had endeared themselves to the British public and the formal elements of these texts perhaps contributed to their longevity as much as the elements that Chapman or Huxley suggests. This is supported by Medhurst here when he states “[t]he resilience of the stereotypes that populate all these texts is a testament to the persistence in English popular comedy of a relatively stable set of cultural groups and social situations deemed to be reliably funny (Medhurst, 2007: 136)”. The Carry Ons are products of their time, the Hudis texts making relevant social commentary on conscription, the NHS and using comedy as a vessel to push those messages. The 1970s texts were running off the back off success with genre parodies and the increased use of innuendo. However, they found that when they returned to social commentary, they tackled burgeoning subjects of the time but didn’t find the voice of the audience. Overall, the factors that led to the longevity of these texts relied almost entirely on the British public; going to see these films and taking the cultural influence they carried aboard.
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Connor Clarke Film 