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Director: Gerald Thomas, Screenplay: Talbot Rothwell, Producer:
Peter Rogers, Original Music: Eric Rogers, Cinematographer:
Ernest Steward, Film Editor: Alfred Roome, Art Director:
Lionel Couch, Costume Designer: Courtenay Elliott, Hair Stylist:
Stella Rivers, Makeup Artist: Geoffrey Rodway, Production Manager:
Jack Swinburne, Assistant Director: Bert Batt, Assistant Art
Director: William Alexander, Set Designer: Peter Lamont, Sound
Recordist: Ken Barker, Dubbing Editor: Peter Best, Sound
Recordist: Danny Daniel, Camera Operator: James Bawden,
Continuity: Joy Mercer, Conductor: Eric Rogers
Cast: Sid
James (Sid Carter), Kenneth Williams (Sir Bernard Cutting), Charles Hawtrey (Dr.
Francis A. Goode), Hattie Jacques (Matron), Joan Sims (Mrs. Tidey), Bernard
Bresslaw (Ernie Bragg), Barbara Windsor (Nurse Susan Ball), Kenneth Connor (Mr.
Tidey), Terry Scott (Dr. Prodd), Kenneth Cope (Cyril Carter), Jacki Piper
(Sister), Bill Maynard (Freddy), Patsy Rowlands (Evelyn Banks), Derek Francis
(Arthur), Amelia Bayntun (Mrs. Jenkins), Valerie Leon (Jane Darling), Brian
Osborne (Ambulance Driver), Gwendolyn Watts (Frances Kemp), Valerie Shute (Miss
Smethurst), Margaret Nolan (Mrs. Tucker), Michael Nightingale (Pearson), Wendy
Richard (Miss Willing), Zena Clifton (Au Pair Girl), Bill Kenwright (Reporter),
Robin Hunter (Mr. Darling), Jack Douglas (Twitching Father), Madeline Smith
(Mrs. Pullitt), Laura Collins (Nurse), Gilly Grant (Nurse in Bath), Juliet
Harmer (Mrs. Bentley), Lindsay Marsh (Shapely Nurse)
Sid James and gang
decide to rob a hospital of a large consignment of anti baby pills. It’s the
usual hilarious mix of slapstick and double entendres, lusty guys chasing girls,
guys dressed up as girls, lusty guys chasing guys dressed up as girls, mixed
with a lot of politically incorrect jokes and a small bit of nudity courtesy of
Gilly Grant (who also appeared with Valerie Leon in the camp classic
Zeta
One). The wards in the hospital are named Bunn and Oven Ward. Kenneth
Williams as a hypochondriac – and very effeminate - doctor is a riot. One of the
best entries in the Carry On canon, it was filmed in record time: Six and
a half days ahead of schedule.
Madeline Smith’s part is tiny. She plays a mother who is worried that her newly born son’s "little thing" is bent to one side. Cue to Joan Sims eating a sausage that appears to collapse the moment it’s on her fork. Very short – less than a minute – and, yes, very unfunny.
Having previously appeared in four Carry Ons in the space of just two years, Valerie Leon had then been on a two-year hiatus in which she filmed Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb. She brought herself back to the memory of the Carry On producers by writing them a letter and was assured that they’d always be interested in "all her talents".
For Carry On Matron, however, very little of these were actually required.
Her part is a bit more memorable than Smith’s, but
also quite short. We see her highly pregnant – but still incredibly glamorous -
being rushed into an ambulance by her husband (Robin Hunter from Vampire
Circus). The reason for the rush soon becomes apparent: The moment the
ambulance is gone, her husband turns around and is greeted by a sexy au pair in
a negligée (Zena Clifton, who had only one more screen credit to her name –
Carry On Girls, again with Leon – before going back again
into cinematic oblivion).
In the ambulance we find Kenneth Cope as a member of Sid James’ gang, smuggled into the hospital dressed up as a nurse in drag, and Terry Scott as a horny doctor. Cope accidentally knocks Scott out with the anaesthetics and has to personally perform the delivery, a bunch of triplets, himself. Because of that he gets into the news much to the annoyance of Sid James’ character who wanted to keep a low profile for their heist.
The most famous publicity photo taken by Leon for the film shows her in front of her own red mini with the personalised number plate VL1. Bought for £600 at the time, she sold it years later for £15.000.
The new Special Edition DVD that has just been released on Region 2 also contains audio commentary by Valerie Leon, Jacki Piper and Patsy Rowlands as well as an episode of the TV Series Carry On Laughing: And In My Lady’s Chamber, a theatrical trailer, a stills gallery and film trivia notes together with a lovely collector’s booklet featuring star profiles.
Further Reading:
Carry On Line
Love
the title! Everything about the Carry On movies.
The Spinning Image
Another review
Buy: