Carry on Up the Jungle

Production: Rank. Director Gerald Thomas; Producer Peter Rogers; Screenplay Talbot Rothwell; Camera Ernest Steward; Editor Alfred Roome; Music Eric Rogers;; Art Director Alex Vetchinsky
Crew: (Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1970. Running time: 90 MIN.
With: Frankie Howerd Sidney James Charles Hawtrey Joan Sims Terry Scott Kenneth Connor

Brought in at Pinewood for around $440,000 (the jungle foliage which kept melting under the lights was the most expensive item) and with plenty stock animal shots, this one is a skit on safari in the jungle, with a parody of Tarzan thrown in for good measure.

It involves the characters plunging in and out of the wrong tents mainly in search of sex, a tribe of headhunting cannibals, another tribe of lush dames in search of men to carry on their mating industry, a sex-starved stray gorilla and sundry other Darkest Africa situations and gags.

The usual core of the Carry On cast is on parade but notable absentees are the supercilious Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Peter Butterworth and Jim Dale, and they are missed. Instead, producer Peter Rogers has brought in another notable favorite, Frankie Howerd. Latter, a fine comedian with characteristics of his own, does not jell as well in situation comedy as when he is a standup comedian.

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Sidney James and Joan Sims, veterans of this series, are towers of strength and, among a bunch of nubile maidens, a comparative newcomer, Jacki Piper, rings a bell.

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