Carry on Sergeant (1958)

Carry on Sergeant begins my maiden voyage into the world of British comedy and the successful Carry On series.  As a whole the Carry On series spanned 31 films over about two decades with one lone film released in the early 90's.  Essentially the series is very reminiscent of America's National Lampoon films, the difference being most of the films in the series include the relatively same group of actors and the Carry On films (at least based on the one I've seen so far) tend to be a little higher quality of production.

In his last weeks prior to retirement Sergeant Grimshawe accepts a bet that for the first time in his career he'll have a champion platoon, but when Grimshawe gets a look at his new recruits all hope is quickly dashed.  What he receives is a man just married looking to get out and spend some time with his new bride, a hypochondriac who thinks everything is wrong with him, a lazy bum, a rock and roller, a clumsy girly man, and a literary smart allelic.  Together they're Britain's very own Stripes (maybe even a influence for that film), as they manage to screw everything up, then on the very last day when they learn of the Sergeant's retirement they miraculously do everything perfectly... how about that!

As a whole Carry on Sergeant wasn't as funny as I expected it to be, it's Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. meets Stripes without as many of the laughs.  Still there are a few characters that were quite entertaining.  Bill Owen played Corporal Bill Copping the Sergeant's right hand man who I can only describe as a fancy stepper and the spitting image of one Craig Ferguson.  Charles Hawtrey is Peter Golightly an extremely nerdy and skinny twig of man whose constantly tripping over himself, speaking out of term and messing everything up.  And Kenneth Williams (who supposedly is the big star of the series) is James Bailey a man the film refers to as an individualist, a haughty sort of character with that classic deep and snobby British accent, which made me chuckle every time he opened his mouth.  Throw in the lovely Shirley Eaton (of Goldfinger fame) as the wife of the newly married recruit who gets a job on the base to be close to him, and Carry on Sergeant has a few charms to it.

Statistically Carry on Sergeant was a huge success taking just a little over a month to film on an estimated budget of £73,000 and it managed to rake in £500,000!  Still it's nothing worth running out and trying to get your hands on, while a few of the characters are quite amusing the film as a whole is pretty predictable, as are the gags.  Also the fact that this group of social rejects manages to come together on the final day of training and get their act together is little short of impossible.  Overall, I didn't find Carry on Sergeant to be a waste of time.  It's mildly entertaining and a nice introduction to the usual cast of actors, and thankfully the two I found to be the most amusing are the two that have starred in the most Carry On films, which gives me something to look forward to in regards to future films.

6/10