Carry On Up the Jungle – 1970 | 89mins | Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

A sparkling tribute to the legacy of Tarzan, this film stomps through an aimless but hilarious track in the African wilderness. Frankie Howard and Kenneth Connor form the perfect partnership of mincing ornithologists, bickering about the various specimens they encounter in the raw heat of the primitive jungle.

As with the majority of the classic films parodies, jungle lacks any convincing plot, chiefly a search for Sims’ long lost son and a rare example of the hugely gifted Oozalum bird). All the film concerns is a troop of British eccentrics fighting their way through the undergrowth. However, when this includes the brilliant sparring of Frankie Howerd and Sid James, the feeble plot is more than enough. Sid is the ultimate bumbling white hunter, tripping over the jungle foliage, shooting various slaves instead of lions, sneaking off for a quick nip of whiskey at any time and incorporating coy sexual references to Jacki Piper and highly unsubtle sight gags with his rifle to a knowing Joan Sims.

Also along for this wonderfully hilarious journey is timid and lazy servant, Upsidasi, a blacked-up Bernard Bresslaw. The comic catalyst is the beautifully incompetent Terry Scott as the token Tarzan-type, swinging through the air with the greatest of ill-at-ease. A clumsy figure of baby-faced ignorance, Scott mumbles and murmurs at all and sundry, delighting in his sexual awakening opposite Jacki Piper and almost being seduced by his own mother, the over-amorous Joan Sims. As a result of his actions, Frankie, Sid and the gang end up on the natives’ menu), escape by the skin of their teeth and get trapped within a fantasy world of female rule. The novelty of regular marriages, soon wears off, even for Sid. Again it is Terry Scott who, through his bumbling help, spoils an ideal situation, while a dragged up Bernard Bresslaw sorts out the situation.

Review© Robert Ross: Carry On Companion.