Alicia
I love this movie so much
Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Phonearl
Good start, but then it gets ruined
ShadeGrenade
'Carry On Emmannuelle' ( 1978 ) is thankfully nowhere near as excrementally awful as its predecessor 'Carry On England' ( 1976 ). Sadly, this is not much of a recommendation. The Rank Organisation had cut the funding to the series ( a decision which led to producer Peter Rogers allegedly describing his former backers as 'toffee-nosed b#####ds' ), and meaning finance had to come from elsewhere. Because of this, it became a 'lost' movie for many years, not being issued on video nor shown on television until the 1990's ( it crept out late one night on I.T.V. to no-one's great pleasure ).By 1978, British audiences had not only experienced the 'Confessions' series, but also the 'Adventures' pictures, so one way or another they had had a surfeit of red-faced British actors being chased by nubile girls in varying states of undress. The new kids on the block were Mel Brooks and the Monty Python team, both of whom offered fresher and more daring comedy styles. The 'Carry On' series just could not compete.'Carry On Emmannuelle', as the title implies, is a spoof of the infamous 1974 Just Jaeckin soft porn picture starring Sylvia Kristel. The problem with the subject matter is immediately apparent - just how do you go about spoofing a picture which appears at times to be a spoof of itself? The script originated with Australian writer Lance Peters, though uncredited rewrites were done by Willie Rushton and Vince Powell. Suzanne Danielle is 'Emmannuelle Prevert', sex-starved wife of 'Emile', ( Kenneth Williams ), the French Ambassador to Britain. He lost his sex drive following a sky-diving accident, so she beds every man she encounters. One of her conquests is nerd 'Theodore Valentine' ( Larry Dann ). He becomes infatuated with her, and sets about trying to track her down. The plot, such as it is, has Emmannuelle drifting from one bloke to another, many of whom seem to be old and tired instead of young and virile. There is a lengthy scene where the Ambassador's domestic staff - butler 'Lyons' ( or 'Loins' as his mistress keeps referring to him, played by Jack Douglas ), cook 'Mrs.Dangle' ( Joan Sims ), chauffeur 'Leyland' ( Kenneth Connor ), and decrepit gardener 'Richmond' ( Peter Butterworth, in one of his last roles ) reminisce about past amorous exploits, but these are never as funny as they should have been.'Emmannuelle' does not feel like a 'Carry On' picture, more like Stanley Long's 'Adventures Of A Diplomat's Wife'. Yes, some of the old gang are around, but don't get much to do. Williams gets most of his laughs by baring his bum and speaking in a silly French accent. The script is pretty threadbare in terms of comedy. Sexy Danielle is on screen 99% of the time ( she went on to play 'Princess Diana' in Mike Yarwood's shows ). Nice to see Douglas in a role which does not require him to lapse into his usual twitching and fumbling, and Larry Dann is good as the lovesick 'Theo', ditto Beryl Reid as his domineering mother. Also around is Henry McGee as a David Frost-style television interviewer called ( wait for it ) 'Harold Hump'. Eric Barker has a wordless cameo as a decrepit General. Another Eric - Rogers - is back too; the picture opens with a disco song called 'Love Crazy', written by Kenny Lynch. Disco and 'Carry On' did not mix. The overall impression is one of desperation.Funniest moment - Emmannuelle's seduction of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, which causes the New Scotland Yard sign to sway back and forth in time to their lovemaking! Barbara Windsor gave the film some much-needed publicity when she complained about the level of pornography in the script. But it was not enough to save it from bombing at the box office. In a way, I'm sorry that it happened as we then lost out on 'Carry On Again Nurse' ( which would have brought Norman Hudis back to the series ) and 'Carry On Dallas' ( a spoof of the dire U.S. soap which would have starred Williams as the wonderfully named 'R.U. Screwing'! ). The 'Carry On' movies became firm television favourites, along with compilation series such as 'Carry On Laughing' and 'Laugh With The Carry On's'. Then, in 1992, 'Carry On Columbus' sailed the ocean blue - but the less said about that, the better.
MARIO GAUCI
This film exhibits a severe drop in quality in this popular long-running comedy franchise and is deservedly considered its nadir (no wonder it proved the last entry for 14 years!). Despite the connection to the soft-core French series (which offset a parallel Italian one), it's really quite tame: statuesque Suzanne Danielle is quite delightful, and the film is chiefly tolerable because of her – the rest is generally tasteless and, sadly, rather lame! On the other hand, the series stalwarts are given little of substance to do, none more so than top-billed Kenneth Williams (who's embarrassing, given that he has to appear butt-naked several times throughout!); guest star Beryl Reid is also wasted as a doting mother of one of Emmanuelle's conquests, and Albert Moses (from the MIND YOUR LANGUAGE TV series) turns up as Williams' bemused psychiatrist.As was the case with the French original, there's little plot to tie the relentless sexcapades: the liberal Emmanuelle's wrecking of a society dinner is immediately followed by a would-be satirical sequence showing her go through various public offices delivering her own special favors. At one point, she even bets with chauffeur Kenneth Connor that she can seduce the Queen's guards – but the scene has an ironic (if predictable) twist; throughout the course of the film, an entire soccer team, an infatuated naïve young man (Reid's son) and a body-building celebrity also figure among the insatiable Emmannuelle's endless parade of lovers.She even arouses Williams' servants – all of them series stalwarts – who open up to reveal their most unusual individual experience in the matter: while these scenes show some invention, essentially they're just a lazy form of padding!; incidentally, Barbara Windsor was supposed to incarnate all of their 'dream lovers' – but, wisely, she dropped out of the project. At the end, husband Williams suddenly finds himself willing (he'd otherwise been obsessed with keeping fit!) and feeds Emmannuelle fertility pills behind her back...leading to a multiple-birth finale which may (or may not) be intended as a nod to Preston Sturges' THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944)!!
lastliberal
Emile Prevert: Why me? You could have Tom, Dick or Harry. Emmannuelle Prevert: I don't want Tom or Harry! With 20 years of Carry On... films, the British people got a laugh or two with slightly bawdy humor that featured some favorite stars. Some of those familiar faces are here in the last installment of the Carry On... films and they do a bang up job of keeping the laughs coming.Kenneth Williams leads the cast as the french Ambasador with an impotence problem. No little blue pills in the seventies, so his wife had to find her fun elsewhere. Suzanne Danielle does a good job as the randy wife spreading cheer throughout the land.Old familiar faces are back as downstairs staff (Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims, Jack Douglas, and Peter Butterworth) who provide several laughs as they react to the Mistress and her antics.Well worth a watch,
tom farrell
Love 'em or loath 'em, a certain indefineable Englishness could always be distilled from the Carry Ons, even the ones set in Ancient Rome or The Wild West. They started out in black and white, stable mates to Norman Wisdom and assorted Ealing comedies and wound down two decades later when the permissive society has made their nudging winking humour obsolete. Through the years, the same actors kept resurfacing parodies of silly suburban Englishness: the leathery lecher Sid James, the squeaky blonde Babs Windsor along with demure Charlie Hawtrey, bulgy eyed Kenneth Williams, repressed matron Hattie Jacques and sharp faced nag Joan Sims. It was the repetition and safeness we cherished, the over the top boooiings! and deliberately crass innuendos, Babs' bra flying off amid stretching exercises and hitting a horror-struck Williams in the face: "Oooh! Matron! take them away!" Far from being 'sex comedies', the Carry Ons are also childishly innocent. None of the villains e.g. Bernard Bresslaw as Bunghit Din in 'Up the Kyber' are genuinely bad. Sid's ear is forever being grabbed by Sims before he can do anything with Babs. All of these elements are absent from Emmanuelle and the result is painful and repulsive. Rogers' dire payment of his actors meant they had little choice but to return time and time again to Rothwell's scripts. By 1978, Sid James was dead, Charles Hawtrey sacked and Jacques (along with Windsor Davies and Terry Scott) committed to better-paying BBC sitcoms. Barbara Windsor reportedly walked out on this one and it's puzzling that her close friend Williams didn't do likewise as he'd already been burnt by the wretched 'Hound of the Baskervilles.' Peter Butterworth, Joan Sims and Kenneth Connor chip in but you know a movie is in trouble when Benny Hill's straight man (Henry McGee) is brought along to make up the numbers. Attempting to capitalise on the success of the French 'Emmanuelle' movies, the old pre-feminist and pre-pill approach to sex is junked in favour of a movie where the elderly Williams is shown copulating with Suzanne Danielle. In her role as Emmanuelle Prevert (pervert get it...? Swiftian wit,we think) Danielle attempts to find satisfaction after Williams was castrated in a nude hand-gliding incident by bedding innumerable men, while a rubbish 'disco' number plays. Meanwhile, shy mother's boy Theodore falls for Danielle and the servants recall their own lamentably unsexy brushes with the permissive society. By the time of this movie's release, the Carry Ons were already dinosaurs and the 1974 effort 'Carry on Dick' was when the series should have been wound up. Other comedies of the time 'Confessions of a...' or 'Percy' have not dated well, but the sea side bawdiness of the 1960s Carry Ons will just about make them watchable on a Sunday afternoon. Not this effort, interesting only as a cruddy little snapshot of post-sixties, pre-Aids views on sex. With Emmanuelle, the Carry Ons died although the stake had to be sharpened one last time in 1992 when the even worse 'Carry on Columbus' rose from the coffin.
