New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 90089" data-attributes="member: 23">There's been a whole lot of Carrying On this weekend. I've watched Abroad; Stuffing; Girls; Christmas (1973); Dick and the audio commentaries for Camping and Again Doctor. With Charles Hawtrey's exit following abroad, there are some major casting misfires in terms of trying to replace him. The camp contingent in Stuffing, Girls and the final Christmas came from, respectively, Jack Douglas, Jimmy Logan and Bernard Bresslaw. There's a sense that all three of them are playing roles written specifically for Hawtrey's style and they fail epically simply because they're not played by Hawtrey. Instead, we have these fairly rugged heterosexual actors trying to play stereotypically camp limp wristed gay men. Perhaps the school of thought was that the unexpectedness of it could make it amusing in the same way that Bresslaw in drag is. But they've completely missed the point. Hawtrey rarely went OTT in this way. He didn't need to. The comedy didn't come from his gayness. Nor even from his theatrical mannerisms. It came from the writing juxtaposing those: marrying him off to Joan Sims (or even having him as her father); charging into battle; serving in the forces; having him as the sole male servicing an army of voluptuous amazons. The same could be said for Kenneth Williams or Frankie Howerd. Instead, Logan lisps and makes bitchy remarks about décor; Bresslaw hisses and lusts after Julian Holloway and the less said about Jack Douglas the better. The (almost) explicitly gay couple in Abroad suffers similarly. Rothwell doesn't know what to do with them, besides throwaway comments about ankle bracelets and eventually having David Kernan "saved" by running off with a woman. There's no progress here, which wouldn't be so bad if it was funny. Sadly, it's just not. Likewise, the Women's Lib movement gets spotlit in Girls. It's natural that films which have come under fire for objectifying women would try to fire a couple of shells back, but it's not clear exactly what they're trying to say. Lack of gender stereotype is once again the easy target. The feminists are written as extreme butch, bra burning ball busters. And then there are the "good" women like Valerie Leon. She laughs off finding Bernard Bresslaw rolling round on a bed with Barbara Windsor and gets a makeover to become every heterosexual male's fantasy. And she knows her place, quickly acquiescing to her partner's demand for her to cover her belly button in public. There's something a little ironic - symbolic even - about Leon literally not having a voice in this film - she's dubbed by the respectable June Whitfield, ensuring her newfound vamp status doesn't stop her from being accessible and homely. Hattie finally had top billing in Carry On Stuffing, and she was the best thing in it. Something I noticed this time round was how similar her Good Fairy was to Frankie Howerd's Fairy Godmother in the original Carry On Christmas. Both rolled their eyes or pulled faces at the puns. And both broke character to complain. Above all, both were funny. The final Christmas had some moments too. I particularly enjoyed the contemporary linking section in which some of the cast - especially Connor and Butterworth - seemed at times very close to how I imagine their real selves to be. Dick is a very contradictory film. The regulars look as tired and old as the writing. But at the same time it mostly works. The abundance of information about the Sid/Barbara affair that's come out in more recent years has put a bit of a damper on Dick and Girls for me (though, I suppose has also added a layer of morbid curiosity).</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?