Year: 1961
Director: Gerald Thomas
Stars: Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Bill Owen, Liz Fraser, Terence Longdon, Esma Cannon, Stanley Unwin
As far as Carry On films go, Carry On Regardless is a little unique. All of the other outings for the team over the years delivered a strong storyline, flowing from one scene to the next, and things just… fitted. Regardless is far more a series of separate sketches, linked together by a common start point, namely the office of the ‘Helping Hands’ agency. and while these sketches are all very funny in their own right, somehow this makes the film itself feel more than a little disjointed.
Sid James is Bert Handy, owner of the agency, and his staff all come from the unemployment office (except the delightfully dotty Esma Cannon as Miss Cooling, his devoted secretary.) Displaying as they do a talent for not holding down a steady job, they are ideal for the more unusual assignments that Helping Hands seems to attract, like escorting pet chimpanzees for walkies, greeting guests at a wine-tasting event (Joan Sims is excellent as the quickly-sozzled Lily), and the babysitting job that turns out to be a ‘make husband jealous’ task for Kenneth Connor, although to be fair he probably resisted Fenella Fielding’s charms a little too much to be convincing.
As the film progresses slowly towards its inevitable calamitous conclusion, it’s easy to forget the sketches that have gone before. As I said, good as they are they are a little too disjointed to really work well together.
Overall, an enjoyable 90 minutes, but a 90 minutes you can take in bite-sized chunks without losing too much of the plot.
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