Carry On Screaming!

Harry H. Corbett - Detective Sergeant Bung
Kenneth Williams - Dr. Watt
Jim Dale - Albert
Charles Hawtrey - Dan Dann
Fenella Fielding - Valeria
Joan Sims - Emily Bung
Angela Douglas - Doris Mann
Bernard Bresslaw - Sockett
Peter Butterworth - Constable Slobotham
Jon Pertwee - Dr. Fettle
Michael Ward - Mr Vivian
Tom Clegg - Odbodd

Without doubt this is one of the series' finest productions, awash with delightfully bad jokes, stunning performances of manic horror. In the absence of Sid James, Harry H. Corbett stepped brilliantly into the spotlight as the Holmesian Scotland Yard detective, hot on the trail of ghouls, disappearing women and rather hairy creatures. Harry contributes a stunning performance of dogged determination, sceptical raised eyebrows and incompetence and is blessed with the nagging of Joan Sims as a domestic feed for comic business at his Victorian home. His Dr. Watson is brought to life by Peter Butterworth, in the first of several outstanding character supports which hover down the cast list but grab most of the best lines. The first image that wanders into view is Tom Clegg's outstanding monster, shaking the leaves as he passes through the undergrowth, moving out of the world of Hammer and straight into a comical evocation of innuendo-sprinkled fear from Jim Dale and Angela Douglas.

The interior sets are stunning, with Thomas establishing the ethos of horror through the crumbling brick seen behind flaking paintwork; a small, shadowed window; primitive light encased in cobwebs and the acid stained, experiment-affected floors of the lab - ideally suited to the obsessions of mad Dr Kenneth Williams and his seductive sister, Fenella Fielding. The film bristles with mesmerising sequences, taking a comic look at every facet of the horror cinema. It tackles an insane, power mad scientist (Williams); a sinisterly seductive temptress (Fielding); a couple of hand-made monsters (Clegg and Cornelius); the towering, Karloffian butler (Bresslaw); a beautiful and helpless heroine (Douglas in the briefest of brief supports); a spooky, cobweb infested mansion; an eerie, misty wood; murders; a plethora of electronic gadgetry; werewolves (two fine manic materialisation's from Corbett and Dale); a living mummy (a typically named Pharaoh Rubbatiti) and a tale of suspenseful deduction pitting good against evil.
Review© Robert Ross: Carry On Companion.