Carry On Sergeant (1958)

The very first Carry On film, this film gives a comic glimpse into life on an army barracks.

Charlie Sage (Bob Monkhouse) has just got married to his wife Mary (Shirley Eaton). While at the reception, he gets called up to his military service, which was supposed to have been deferred, but there was some confusion as to who was supposed to send him the paperwork.

And so he is shipped off to the barracks where he joins the rest of the new recruits, most of them bumbling fools.

The officer in charge of his platoon is Sergeant Grimshawe (William Hartnell), who only has ten weeks left in the army, and is desperate to go out on top, having the top platoon in the country. But it doesn’t look like this lot of recruits are going to be able to give him what he wants.

Add to all this the fact that Mary has managed to smuggle herself into the camp, posing as a canteen worker, and all hell is about to break loose!

The rest of the plot I will leave for you to discover.

Being the very first Carry On film, this doesn’t quite have the sheen and polish that some of the later offerings of the team did. The film is okay, but it doesn’t feel quite the same in a lot of ways. The humour is a lot more subdued – not nearly as many clever puns and wordplay as we find later in the ‘series’, if one can call it that.

Carry On regulars Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques all make appearances in this film, and are just as funny in their respective roles as ever.

Screenwriter Norman Hudis has written a fairly clever script, which does feel like a true Carry On film, just a little more on the conservative side, as we are still in the 1950s for this film. Bring on the 1970s and a few more clever puns and double entendres, but for the timebeing, this will have to do.

Gerald Thomas, who of course would direct all the Carry On films over the many years they lasted, has done a good enough job on this first one, but again, it just doesn’t feel as tight as later films do to me. I suppose the cast and crew were all still coming into their own as a group, and everyone has to start somewhere.

If you’re into Carry On, then certainly check this out. If you’re not, perhaps give it a miss.

5 out of 10.