MovieChat Forums > Carry on Sergeant (1958) Discussion > A view from October, 1958.

A view from October, 1958.

posted 12 years ago by DavidW1947
6 replies | jump to latest

This film was extensively publicised in the autumn of 1958 and, in October, 1958, at the age of eleven and a half, I went to see it at my local ABC, probably to see what all the fuss was about. As far as I can remember, I didn't find it in the least bit funny and I can't remember laughing at all at the very forced humour on offer throughout. I also found the scenes between the hypochondriac Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor) and the man hungry Norah (Dora Bryan) cringe inducingly awful. Added to that, the call up age for National Service at that time was 18 to 22, so all the actors "called up" here were far too old to do National Service, especially Charles Hawtrey. The supporting film, the British gangster picture “Man With a Gun”, starring Glen Mason and Lee Patterson, was probably far more entertaining. But, as I haven’t seen it for fifty-four years, I can’t say for sure. The most amazing thing about "Carry On Sergeant" was that it was a box office hit.

[–] marktayloruk 10 years ago

I believe the maximum callup age was 26.

[–] karpizan 10 years ago

Miserable git

[–] emmakwall 8 years ago

Haha well said!!! My thoughts entirely :)

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

perhaps you should try watching it again, and see if you like it any better now. Also, have you ever watched any of the other Carry On films, and if so what did you think of them?

[–] DavidW1947 8 years ago

I saw two out of the first four as a cinema patron between 1958 and 1961 and the rest (up to 1973s Carry On Abroad), between 1962 and 1973 while working as a cinema projectionist…a now obsolete profession. None of them were much good, with the exception of Carry On Up The Jungle (1970) and Carry On Loving (1971) which were quite funny in parts, especially Carry On Loving, which I thought was hilarious and I actually found myself laughing heartily at parts of it. Kenneth Williams Mr Snooper, the Marriage Guidance Counsellor who knew nothing about married couples because he’d never been married and Bernard Bresslaw’s Gripper Burke, the insanely jealous and very violent all-in wrestler were really funny and I still laugh at them today, nearly 46 years later.

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

it's interesting that you worked as a cinema projectionist, what a great number of films you must have seen! carry Ons obviously not your cup of tea,apart from those two, but i expect there were other films that made up for them.