Review of Carry On Constable (1960) by Stuart K — 30 Apr 2014

The fourth Carry On film, and here they were starting to hit their stride with more confidence and the smutty humour was starting to come in more prominently. This was also the first Carry On film to star Sidney James, and while he was playing a more restrained, straight-man role compare to the sorts he would eventually play.

It is still a very funny film with some good characters and smutty jokes. Due to a flu epidemic, a local police station ends up being badly understaffed, Sergeant Frank Wilkins (James) is under pressure to get more bobbies on the beat from his boss Inspector Mills (Eric Barker).

4 new recruits come straight from the police training school. They are PC Stanley Benson (Kenneth Williams), PC Tom Potter (Leslie Phillips), Constable Charlie Constable (Kenneth Connor) and Special Constable Timothy Gorse (Charles Hawtrey), who are absolutely inept and bumbling.

Their antics get Wilkins' blood pressure up, and it tests Mills patience even further, but a stroke of blind luck leads to them following the leaders of a wages robbery to their hideout. It's a very silly film, but it does have a lot of the regulars that would come back time and again in future Carry On films, while it would have been a lot naughtier if it had been made 10 years later, it was pretty risque for it's time, but it's still a very funny film, and there's a lot of wordplay and misunderstandings.