Carry On Spying (1964) ***

The potential for leering – given the squads of bikinied beauties, cleavage abounding and partial nudity a prerequisite in the standard James Bond picture  – could have gone into the stratosphere. So it’s to the producer’s credit that they opted to drop ogler-in-chief and Carry On perennial Sidney James from this enterprise. So, automatically, there’s more of a gentler  Ealing or Doctor in the House vibe to the satire.

Given the propensity for inuendo and said ogling, there’s a general perception that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny that women in this series are portrayed as objects existing solely for the pleasure of men. However, as here, women are often in charge and certainly more sensible than the males.

Here dumb Desmond Simpkins (Kenneth Williams), dumber Harold Crump (Bernard Cribbins) and dumbest Charlie Bind (Charles Hawtrey) are easily put in the shade by fellow spy Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor), she of the photographic memory, and deadly enemy Dr Crowe (Judith Furse) who has the sense to steer clear, unlike James Bond’s deadliest enemies, of cats and heads up an organization called STENCH.

And while generally the focus of the fun is the James Bond series – of which only two at this point had been made – the movie also draws on antecedents such as The Third Man (1949) and, dare I say it, Casablanca (1942) and film noir. And there’s an acceptance that Britain has not shot to the top of the espionage premier league courtesy of one bed-hopping spy but is more likely to drown in officialdom and inefficiency.

We begin with a particularly British joke that a milkman would have access to even the most top-secret laboratories simply because every living person in the country can’t do without their daily hand-delivered pint of milk, thus permitting an enemy secret agent in the most simple of disguises to nip in and steal a top secret formula and blow up the lab.

The four agents are despatched to Vienna, primarily so the movie can take advantage of jokes about sewers and zithers a la The Third Man, and prove how inadequate our quartet actually are. From there, they hare over to Algiers, because that’s the kind of locale where Crump and Honeybutt can infiltrate a club disguised as belly dancers. Naturally, they are captured by STENCH and while enemy agents are often as comfortable in bikinis and the cleavage-showing malarkey here the females, while wearing skintight outfits, reveal no flesh, and there’s – shock! horror! – no ogling.  

There’s a very humorous twist on the trope of a spy eating top secret material wherein our quartet need soup and bread to help it go down. However, there’s a clever reversal when Honeybutt’s photographic memory, allowing her to instantly recall the secret formula, makes her prey to Dr Crowe.

There’s a stab at romance, although hapless males Simpkins and Crump are ill-prepared to deal with the advances of, respectively, double agent Lila (Dilys Laye) and Honeybutt. Pratfalls are limited though Inspector Clouseau would have welcomed the comic relief afforded by doors.

This was Barbara Windsor’s first Carry On venture. Most of the rest of the cast were series regulars and pretty much played the characters they always play.

Cleaner fun than it might have been had Sid James headed the cast. One of the better spoofs in the series. Directed as usual by Gerald Thomas and written by Talbot Rothwell (Three Hats for Lisa, 1965) and Sid Colin (Up Pompeii, 1971).

Well up to standard.