Carry On Jack is a 1964 British comedy film, the eighth in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). Most of the usual Carry On team are missing from this film: only Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey appear throughout, with Jim Dale making a cameo appearance as a sedan chair carrier. Bernard Cribbins makes the first of his three appearances in a Carry On. Juliet Mills, Donald Houston and Cecil Parker make their only Carry On appearances in this film. Carry On Jack was the second of the series to be filmed in colour and the first Carry On film with a historical setting and period costumes.
As with its immediate predecessor, the script for Carry on Jack started off as a non-Carry On film (originally entitled Up the Armada) and after a number of title changes was incorporated into the series. The film was followed by Carry On Spying (1964).
Contents
Plot
Before dying, Admiral Horatio Nelson says Britain needs a bigger navy with more men and then requests a kiss to Hardy. Meanwhile, Albert Poop-Decker has taken eight and half years and is still not qualified as midshipman, but is promoted by the First Sea Lord as England needs officers. He is to join the frigate HMS Venus at Plymouth. Arriving to find the crew celebrating as they are sailing tomorrow, he takes a sedan chair with no bottom (so he has to run), carried by a young man and his father to Dirty Dick's Tavern. Mobbed by women in the tavern as he is holding a sovereign aloft, he is rescued by serving maid Sally. She wants to go to sea to find her former lodger and childhood sweetheart Roger. Learning that Poop-Decker has not reported to his ship and is unknown to them, she knocks him out and takes his midshipman's uniform.
Poop-Decker wakes and dons a dress to cover his long johns, and downstairs, along with cess pit cleaner Walter Sweetly, is kidnapped by a press gang run by the Venus's First Officer Lieutenant Jonathan Howett and his bosun, Mr. Angel. They awake at sea and are introduced to Captain Fearless. Poop-Decker makes himself known, but there is already a Midshipman Poop-Decker aboard – Sally, in disguise. Poop-Decker, as a hopeless seaman, goes on to continually upset Howett by doing the wrong thing. Sally reveals her identity to Poop-Decker after he has been punished, and he decides to let things continue as they are. Eventually, Poop-Decker and Sally fall in love with each other.
After three months at sea and no action, the crew are restless, and when they finally see a Spanish ship, the Captain has them sail away from it. Howett and Angel hatch a plot, making it look as if the ship has been boarded by the enemy during a night raid and using Poop-Decker as a dupe to get the Captain leave the ship on his own volition. Poop-Decker, Sweetly and Sally help the Captain into a boat, and they leave the ship. However, while leaving his cabin, the Captain gets a splinter in his foot, which becomes gangrenous. Reaching dry land, Captain Fearless reckons that they are in France and only a short distance from Calais, while in fact they are in Spain. Sally and Poop-Decker spot a party of civilians and steal their clothes while they are bathing.
Now in charge of the ship, Howett and Angel sail for Cádiz and plan on taking it from Don Luis, the Spanish Governor. They are successful, but their plot is ruined by Poop-Decker's group, who stumble into Cádiz (believing it to be Le Havre) and recapture the Venus. Sailing back to England, they encounter a pirate ship, whose crew seizes the Venus. Pirate Captain Patch turns out to be Sally's lost love Roger, but upon seeing him as a brutal rogue, she no longer wants to have anything to do with him. In order to force her compliance, Patch and Hook try to make Poop-Decker and Fearless walk the plank. However, Poop-Decker escapes and cuts down a sail, which covers the pirates, capturing them.
In Cádiz, the former crew of the Venus are taken to be shot, but escape to England with five empty Spanish men-of-war. They are within sight of England when they encounter the Venus. While Poop-Decker, Sally and Walter are working belowdecks to amputate Fearless's infected leg, a fire gets out of control on deck and sets off the Venus's primed cannons, hitting all five Spanish ships and thwarting Howett. Poop-Decker and his companions are declared heroes by the Admiralty. Fearless, who now has a pegleg is promoted to Admiral and given a desk job. Poop-Decker and Sweetly are given the rank of honorary Captains, with pensions, but Poop-Decker reveals that he is going to leave the service to marry Sally.
Background
The overall plot in relation to Sally steals the idea from episode 2 of the British TV series Sir Francis Drake made three years earlier (1961). In this episode a girl (the daughter of a ship's gunner) stows away on Drake's ship dressed as a man.
Crew
Screenplay – Talbot Rothwell
Music – Eric Rogers
Art Director – Jack Shampan
Director of Photography – Alan Hume
Editor – Archie Ludski
Associate Producer – Frank Bevis
Assistant Director – Anthony Waye
Camera Operator – Godfrey Godar
Sound Editor – Christopher Lancaster
Sound Recordist – Bill Daniels
Unit Manager – Donald Toms
Make-up Artists – Geoffrey Rodway & Jim Hydes
Continuity – Penny Daniels
Hairdressing – Olga Angelinetta
Costume Designer – Joan Ellacott
Technical Advisor – Ian Cox
Producer – Peter Rogers
Director – Gerald Thomas
Filming and locations
Filming dates: 2 September – 26 October 1963
Interiors:
Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire
Exteriors:
Frensham Pond. The background to the scenes with HMS Venus on fire and "firing" on the other ships is Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset.
Reception
Kinematograph Weekly called the film a "money maker" for 1964.