Carry On Cruising (1962)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1962
Running Time	85:40
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gerald Thomas
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Sidney James Kenneth Williams Kenneth Connor Lance Percival Liz Fraser Dilys Laye Esme Cannon
Case	?
RPI	$17.50	Music	Bruce Montgomery Douglas Gamley

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    For most, the Carry On series is either a love it or hate it affair. Luckily, I fall into the former category, but found this particular episode somewhat lacking in both story and humour compared to others from the series. This successful series started back in 1958 with the release of Carry on Sergeant and continued through a whopping 31 more titles with the last one being released in 1992. Carry On Cruising was the sixth Carry On film and was the first to be released in colour.

    In this episode, Sidney James is the Captain of the luxury cruise liner SS Happy Wanderer. His regular crew has been replaced with a bunch of misfits, such as the pompous First Mate, the seasick chef and the love-sick doctor, just to name a few. The Captain wants this voyage to go smoothly because he is expecting a promotion to captain the company's newest and grandest ship. The trouble is, these misfits may just be his undoing unless he can cover up or prevent all of their mistakes.

    This episode features all the usual stars such as Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Lance Percival, although this was also the first Carry On release after Sid James had a falling out with Charles Hawtrey, who is naturally therefore not featured in the show. Charles believed that he was the big draw card to the series and therefore wanted higher billing. I guess history speaks for itself.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, and is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was rather average-looking and exhibited a soft appearance. Shadow detail is rarely a problem with good strong lighting being used, causing no areas to suffer from poor visibility. There is mild low level noise throughout the feature which is most noticeable on the ship's walls, particularly if the area was an off-white colour.

    As I mentioned earlier, this was the first Carry On to be released in colour so you would assume that some attention would have been paid to get it right the first time. For the most part this is what they did, but some colours, particularly red, are too strong and could have been toned down. There was some colour bleeding - just pick any scene with the bright red jumper or the lamp at 15:00.

    Aerial outdoor footage and distant shots of the ship from the shore were very grainy in appearance. Thankfully these scenes were quick and few in number, but sections like 30:02, 42:37, 44:30 and 63:12 were of very poor quality. This had the effect of making the footage either side of these marks appear actually cleaner than it really was. Aliasing is very rare and very mild when it does occur. Film artefacts are frequent and the majority of them are in the form of scratches or dust, both black and white in colour.

    There are no subtitles on this disc.

    This disc is a single sided disc so therefore there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only the one audio track on this DVD in the form of an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times. Well, the drunk on board did slur at times, but that's only to be expected.

    Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer.

    The musical score by Bruce Montgomery and Douglas Gamley was typical of other films of this era. It was no doubt designed to fit in with the theme of the movie and it suited it well. The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    Due to the fact that the soundtrack was centre channel based there were no cases where the surrounds were used.

    Likewise, the subwoofer was not used by this track either.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras on this disc.

Menu

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing

• Nothing

    Whilst I enjoy Sid and the team in most Carry On movies that I have seen to date, this was not really one of them. It seemed to lack a lot of the spark and certainly appeared to be lighter on the comedy than others.

    The video is comparable to a VCR copy but at least you get to watch it more times as it won't degrade over time.

    The audio works, but as the sound sits in the centre speaker there is nothing to get excited about here.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall