Carry On Screaming (1966)
Carrying
on the fortune-making Carry On tradition with a broad,
farcical and sometimes near-the-knuckle look at the conventional
spook thriller as the team tackle a blood-curdling missing persons
investigation.
When his girl-friend Doris disappears in mysterious circumstances
from the forest clearing in which they have been dallying, Albert
Potter reports the matter to Detective Sergeant Bung and his
assistant, Slobotham.
Investigating several similar disappearances, Bung and Slobotham
find a house near the clearing, but are unsuspicious of its very
suspect owners, Dr. Watt and his vampirish sister, Valeria.
Bung (Harry H Corbett) is led into the
strange world of the mysterious Dr Watt (Kenneth Williams), the
dead doctor who is periodically electrically revived to help Valeria
(Fenella Fielding) in the stealing of
another woman to wax down and sell as a dummy.
The actual stealer
is their machine-made creation, Oddbodd Monster (Tom Clegg).
The reluctant Bung sets about investigating, and finds a
seven-foot tall monster, an angry Mummy, and Kenneth Williams’
nasal cry of "Frying tonight!".
In the absence of Sid James, Harry H. Corbett stepped
brilliantly into the spotlight as the Holmesian Scotland Yard
detective, and contributes a stunning performance of dogged
determination, sceptical raised eyebrows and incompetence.
He is
also blessed with the nagging of Joan Sims as a domestic feed for
comic business at his Victorian home.
 His Dr. Watson is brought to life by Peter Butterworth, in the
first of several outstanding character supports which hover down
the cast list but grab most of the best lines.
Without doubt this is one of the series' finest productions,
awash with delightfully bad jokes and stunning performances of
manic horror.
The interior sets are stunning, with Director Gerald Thomas
establishing the ethos of horror through the crumbling brick seen
behind flaking paintwork; a small, shadowed window; primitive
light encased in cobwebs and the acid stained, experiment-affected
floors of the lab - ideally suited to the obsessions of mad Dr
Watt and his seductive sister, Valeria.
The film bristles with mesmerising sequences taking a comic
look at every facet of horror cinema.
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