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Carry On Cruising

Carry On Cruising

  • Status: Released
  • 12-03-1962
  • Runtime: 89 min
  • Score: 6.094
  • Vote count: 65

Captain Crowther's lot is not a happy one! Five of his crew have to be replaced and at such short notice before the voyage begins there isn't much to choose from. Not only does he get the five most incompetent shipmates ever to sail the seven seas, but the passengers turn out to be a rather strange bunch too. The SS Happy Wanderer will never be the same.

Sid James

Captain Wellington Crowther

Kenneth Williams

First Officer Leonard Marjoribanks

Kenneth Connor

Doctor Arthur Binn

Liz Fraser

Glad Trimble

Dilys Laye

Florence 'Flo' Castle

Esma Cannon

Bridget Madderley

Lance Percival

Wilfred Haines, Ship's Cook

Jimmy Thompson

Sam Turner, Barman

Ronnie Stevens

Drunk Passenger

Vincent Ball

Jenkins

Ed Devereaux

Young Officer

Brian Rawlinson

Nervous Steward

Anton Rodgers

Young Man

Cyril Chamberlain

Tom Tree

Willoughby Goddard

Large Man

Anthony Sagar

Cook

Terence Frisby

Passenger

Mario Fabrizi

Second Cook

Marian Collins

Bride

Jill Mai Meredith

Shapely Miss

Alan Casley

Sailor

CinemaSerf

You have to feel for poor old "Capt. Crowther" (Sid James) when he discovers that half of his crew have gone down with something and their replacements don't even know what ocean they are sailing in. His problems don't stop there as the SS "Happy Wanderer" has a clientele that would probably have made the "Titanic" iceberg jump out of the way. As ever, it's Esma Cannon who steals the show as the lively, doddery, "Miss Madderley", but there are also some fine contributions from Liz Fraser; Ronnie Stevens - always pickled - and Kenneth Williams as the hapless second-in-command. The jokes are all the usual round of nautical, innuendo-ridden, quips (though I am not sure I heard "avast behind" in there) and the cast look like they are all enjoying themselves as the story plots it's predictable, but entertaining, course. Somehow I felt the "Carry On" films worked better in black and white, the humour pertained more to the past rather than the colour of the future, but this takes a swipe at all things cruising: snobbery, excess, boredom and the middle classes who tended to occupy the cabins when not getting blotto on cocktails they had never heard of - and it does it quite well. It's a chortle, not a laugh out enterprise and is anchored well by some pithy writing and Messrs. James and Williams.