Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
The first of the Carry On movies, 1958's Sergeant is rather different from its successors, much more a film of its time (the latter days of National Service) and rather less a bawdy picture postcard. Sergeant Grimshaw (William Hartnell long before Doctor Who) is about to retire and hopes that he can get his last platoon into shape as Champion Platoon of its intake. Unfortunately, the new recruits include the clumsy Golightly (Charles Hawtrey), the barrack-room lawyer Bailey (Kenneth Williams) and the hypochondriac Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor). Love interest is provided by Bob Monkhouse and Shirley Eaton--newlyweds separated by the call-up and reunited by her taking a job in the canteen--and by the pursuit of Horace by Dora Bryan's Nora. The film relies heavily on a mixture of slapstick and paradoxical revelations of character complexity--the obnoxious Bailey nonetheless takes the trouble to coach the incorrigibly dense Herbert (Norman Rossington); the series' later obsession with low comedy only really emerges in the scenes between Horace and the medic Captain Clark (Hattie Jacques). The platoon's eventual coming together as other than total incompetents is predictable, but likable.
On the DVD: The DVD has no frills whatever except for a widescreen picture and chapter selections; it has been cleaned up however so that we get a remarkably crisp mono picture and mono sound, which brings out the quality of the military-band score by Bruce Montgomery, who was also the writer Edmund Crispin. --Roz Kaveney
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Arghhhhhhhh,
By mandyakabambi@btinternet.com (England, Yorkshire.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Carry on Sergeant [VHS] [1958] (VHS Tape)
This was the first Carry on, they didn`t know at the time that they were going to make more. Any film that contains Kenneth Williams going Arghhhh!!! earns the first star. Ironically, the basic training scenes are closer to reality than many a war epic. Bob Monkhouse makes his first and last apearance in a Carry on, and he puts in a good and funny performance. Kenneth Connor is superb, as always he is always in bother. Charles Hawtrey is brilliant. Kenneth Williams plays it straight, and his snapping and snotty one liners are delivered like nobody else could. A Carry On film without Kenneth Williams is like a lamp without a bulb. This film is a must for Carry On fans, it is the first and one of the best, and all the jokes are fresh.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carry On,
By
This review is from: Carry on Sergeant [DVD] [1958] (DVD)
As always a great film from the Carry On stable. Being the first of it's kind makes it special and in some ways it is the best of the bunch, not quite so silly as some of the later James/Windsor style, but still extremely funny.
A very enjoyable film.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A subtle start to the carry on series,
By
This review is from: Carry On Sergeant [DVD] (DVD)
Somehow I had managed to miss this over the last 50 years. So to see it in 2008, having seen many of the later Carry On films was something of a surprise. The nudge nudge element, I suppose best represented by Sid James, is mostly missing, and the film in black and white still mainly looks as though it was made just after the end of the second world war.
Its humour is more restrained than the later films. In many ways this is a good thing, because when Kenneth Connor and Kenneth Williams do appear the link to the later Carry On films falls into place. The fact that both Connor and Williams are both recruits in the Army tells you all you need to know. The cast all give fine performances, and its well written and directed. I also wondered whether this was an influence on the writers of Dads Army. Kenneth Connor's character in particular had many of the traits that Corporal Jones would use ten years later. Whilst this may not be as good as Carry on up the Kyber its still a much better film than you might expect.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
