Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28818 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-01-29
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Synopsis
In CARRY ON SPYING, when a top-secret formula is stolen by STENCH (the Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans), Agent Simpkins (Kenneth Williams) and his gadget-toting crew embark on a hilarious mission to foil the bad guys.

Customer Reviews

i love this film
the 9th movie in the much loved series and released in 1964 is notable for being the last black and white carry on and the first of the leading lady of carry on babs windsor.This film also mocks the james bond film series and also takes a swipe at the classic films the third man and casablanca.
Starring kenny willams and bernie cribbins,spying takes the gang around the world,more like around the studio chasing after a villain who threatens humanity and with some warped gadgets and some of the worst disguises seen in the history of the world,carry on spying is a real classic with a sense of mischief that few will ever be able to recreate,a worthy addition to anyones collection either as a one off carry on or as part of your carry on collection.

Good But Not Great
There are three grades of the classic 'Carry On' Film. Grade 1 includes Cleo, Screaming and Up the Kyber. These are best, cinematic gold, good stories, settings and humour. Grade 3 include any made after 1969 or so, when the progressively diminishing budgets started to have a direct impact on the writing and the subject matter such that the settings became more domestic and bland by necessity. The fact that the British economy was going into the toilet at the same time was probably not a coincidence - we had less to laugh about after 1969.

'Spying' is, in my opinion, a Grade 2. The sets (recycled?) are superb and the supporting actors are flawless with a debut by a grossly underused Jim Dale as British uber-spy Carstairs.

The problem is that the main actors, Williams, Windsor, Hawtree and Cribbins suffer from a lame script and poor characterisation. Kenneth Williams, who was brilliant in the Grade 1 movies above is grossly under-used here and simply reprises his annoying foil from his time opposite Tony Hancock. Hawtree blunders about to no effect and Windsor and Cribbins have a weak love thing going.

So what's to enjoy about this film? Well its tongue-in-cheek homage to 'The Third Man', including zither music, 'Casablanca', with its own fat man (the actor in question had a part in 'Third Man') and 'Dr No' complete with hermaphroditic mad scientist and Modesty Blaise clones. This film does not look cheap as the later ones tended to do.

The film ends too quickly with a wrap-up that disturbs the flow, as if they were running over time or over budget and had to call a halt.

But if you ignore these flaws and simply immerse yourself in the comparatively high and detailed production values in front of you then you will enjoy this film. The opening tracking shot of Victor Maddern as the evil Milkman up to no good is a treat.

So, all in all, this film is worth your valuable viewing time and as the DVD will set you back a bit less than buying a large-sized meal at Burger King, why not?

Like finding a fiver in your pocket you'd forgotten was there
Although I yield to no-one in my admiration of Sid James, Carry Ons Spying and Screaming are two of the most enjoyable, fully-realised movies of that long series, even without his presence. Sid gradually became the dominant personality in the films and, fun as that always was, there's a sense that, in his absence, the rest of the gang get more of a look in, get more of the centre-stage business to do and consequently raise their game bigtime.

The beautiful double act of Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey sets the tone, their performances a perfect balance of knowingness and cheeky abandonment to whatever fun is waiting around the next corner. It says a lot about how brittle and inflexible the James Bond machine was becoming even in 1964 that the Broccoli organisation brought out the lawyers and instructed them to cut the legs off this mildest, most affectionate of parodies. Fortunately for us, they didn't succeed beyond forcing Hawtrey's "James Bind" to become "Charles Bind" -a name that director Lindsay Shonteff also used in his seventies Bond take-off, "Licensed to Love and Kill", starring (and I'm not kidding) Gareth Hunt.

But Bond isn't the only target for the spoofery. The Third Man gets a wink, as does Modesty Blaise; in fact, every cliché (sorry: archetype) of the spy genre has a friendly raspberry blown in its face, and the fact that "Carry On Spying" ticks a lot of the boxes more satisfyingly than at least half a dozen of the Bond films says a lot for the makers' fondness for the genre they were sending up (and it's important to stress that this is a spoof, not a piss-take; there's no sneering involved).

This was Barbara Windsor's first Carry On film, pub-quizzers, and also stars Sir (at least in our house) Bernard Cribbins. And any film that features Victor Maddern as a super-spy belongs on some kind of plinth in the museum of Sunday afternoon hangover telly.