Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

CARRY ON AT YOUR CONVENIENCE is a perfectly serviceable (pun intended) entry in the long-running franchise and one that marks a distinct improvement over its sordid predecessor, CARRY ON HENRY. This one sees the welcome return of contemporary locations in the antics set within a toilet factory plagued by love, lust, and striking workers.In some ways, CARRY ON AT YOUR CONVENIENCE is a breath of fresh air for those involved. Sid James doesn't play a lech for once, and has some great old-fashioned humour in the scenes where his pet budgerigar predicts the outcome of certain horse races for him. More importantly, Kenneth Williams isn't the antagonist after what seemed like an age of him working against the rest of the cast members. He's just an ordinary guy whose relationship with Patsy Rowlands is repeated from CARRY ON LOVING.This film was a well publicised flop, and many reviewers have argued that it was due to the storyline's anti-union stance. It's a shame when an audience can't take a joke aimed at themselves (the Carry Ons were popular with the working class, many of whom were union members themselves) because the storyline is as good as ever. There are nice roles for a deeply flamboyant Charles Hawtrey and a permanently befuddled Bernard Bresslaw, although I would have preferred to see series regulars Peter Butterworth or Kenneth Connor instead of the weak likes of Kenneth Cope and Richard O'Callaghan we get here. Still, there are memorable turns for the female talent: Jacki Piper, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, and Margaret Nolan. The climactic trip to Brighton is the real highlight here and a neat precursor to the delights of CARRY ON ABROAD.

Flush with success at a time when British movie comedy was going down the tube,the "Carry On" gang will drive you round the bend with this tale of a strike at a factory making lavatory bowls.There really is no end to the number of toilet gags you can come up with.Add a Works Outing to Brighton and you have the core of "Carry on at your convenience",a worthy addition to the chain (sorry,I promise that's the last one)of brilliant Brit comedies starring many of our most beloved and enduring performers.And this one features the great stage comedienne Miss Renee Houston.....it doesn't get better than this.... Girls with hot pants and kinky boots decorate most scenes,Mr Kenneth Williams is at his very best,Mr Sid James and Miss Joan Sims play a really rather poignant undeclared love scene and Brighton positively glows in glorious 1970s Harrison Marks colour. There are weaknesses amongst the younger members of the cast,but who cares when Sid and Hattie's budgerigar gives them Racing Tips and Mr Hawtrey and Miss Houston - no spring chickens - play Strip Poker in her Boarding House? Hugely underrated,but one of the best of all the "Carry Ons".

The WC Boggs Lavatory factory is the heart of its town but the workforce and management could not be more different. While the managers trial their new slimline bathroom suite, the workforce greet the news that the shop floor tea service has been stopped. Although the workers don't care, the union doesn't like it one bit and, in the usual show of strength call everyone out on a one day strike. Everyone uses the day "off" in different ways but everyone returns with something going on. Meanwhile the CEO is persuaded by his son to take on a large order for bidets with a very short turnaround time.It is interesting to see how the Carry On series changed over the 20-25 or so years that it ran for. Starting out with gentle situation comedies, they moved into bawdy spoofs and then gradually the innuendo and smut took over and gradually more and more of the output became like this film – plot less and heavy in crude, unfunny humour. That is not to say it is without value because there are still people who like the smutty postcards you can buy and those people will probably be wiping tears from their eyes at every joke in this film. Personally I was wiping sleep from my eyes because I found it all quite tiring. There isn't any wit or invention in the innuendo either – the writing is pretty lazy where the better films in the series at least had that going for them.The cast all try hard but it is hard to overlook the fact that many if not all of them deserve better than this. James gurns away like a good 'un but it is a bad sign that his faces are funnier than all his lines put together. Williams and Hawtrey camp their way through the film with good spirits while Sims is a terrible, cackling fishwife type who is the butt (sorry) of many of the smutty jokes. Jacques is wasted while Cope and O'Callaghan's efforts to carry the plot amount to nothing. The plot is rubbish and has no flow to follow. However the only thing I will say in its favour is that the portrayal of a British factory of the period is pretty much spot on. I work with colleagues in a factory who have been there for more than 30 years and they do tell tales of absurd strikes at the time, while most of them still have the same non-PC and sexist humour and attitude on display here.If you like the British sexual "comedies" of the 1970's then I suppose you will find the seaside postcard humour of this film a delight. For me I found it crude and basic, lacking wit or originality with all the jokes signposted like they were motorway junctions.

This is the Carry On film which took longest to make back its money. It's not difficult to see why as it is so disparaging towards the unions and the typical Carry On fan in the early 70s was working class. If you are going to insult your target audience then don't be surprised to find they don't go to see your film. Having said that the basic storyline has plenty of opportunities for Talbot Rothwell's seaside postcard humour especially as they go on a works outing to Brighton. One of the Carry On films' best points is the way they added those little details so you get a toilet manufacturer called WC Boggs, the foreman's name sounds like plumber, his daughter's name is Myrtle which is a plant that grows in bogs. If I could only buy a budgie like Sid Plummer's I'd be laughing even more.