Barbara's Bikini Leaves a Big Impression
"Carry on Camping" is one of the better known "Carry on" movies but it doesn't actually mean its any good. In fact personally I find "Carry on Camping" one of the weakest and ultimately quite dull as it tries to bring hilarity from a series of storylines that revolve around a campsite. The reason why "Carry on Camping" is one of the better known "Carry on" movies is purely down to it being the one which features Barbara Windsor and her bikini top flying off whilst she's doing exercises. Apart from that one scene there is not that much which is memorable about it.
To try and work out an actual storyline to "Carry on Camping" would be quite futile as it doesn't really have one. We have a storyline about Sid and Bernie trying to dupe their girlfriends to going to a nudist camp but failing. You have the school full of girls who end up at a camping site along with other stories such as Peter and Harriet going camping as well as loner Charlie. But in all honesty there isn't really a main storyline rather than a series of camping based gags as randiness leads to predictable mishaps and so on.
In many ways "Carry on Camping" is classic "Carry on" when it comes to the humour as it is full of sexual innuendo and risque moments of bare flesh. But strangely most of the jokes fail to really make you laugh as one pretty much follows another and none of them being that clever, funny or original. And because there really isn't a storyline "Carry on Camping" is a movie of set pieces which unfortunately fail as often as the jokes do. The only real set piece scene which works and is memorable is Barbara Windsor and her bikini top flying off, but maybe that's because it is so often used in advertising "Carry on" movies that it is memorable.
And then there are the performances and basically you can say that of the cast, the "Carry On" regulars are playing to type. So what you get is Sid James being a dirty old man who wants to get his leg over, Bernard Bresslaw being his bumbling buddy. Hattie Jacques is a battle axe of a school matron and Kenneth Williams is a stuck up head master. And I could go on because "Carry on Camping" also features Terry Scott, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey, Peter Butterworth and Dilys Laye. Plus of course you have Barbara Windsor playing an over grown school girl who we are introduced to in school uniform with suspenders fighting and then spends the rest of the movie in figure hugging outfits. It is shall we say a very typical "Carry on" movie when it comes to their performances.
What this all boils down to is that "Carry on Camping" is in many ways a very average "Carry on" movie, made famous because of that one scene featuring Barbara Windsor and her bikini top flying off. Apart from that it suffers from the weakest of storylines and jokes which are strangely unfunny. It does try hard with one joke following another but so many of them fail to really make you laugh that it ends up dull and only really memorable for that one scene.
Tags: Carry On Movies
