Carry On Regardless (1961)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1961
Running Time	86:39
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 Connor Joan Sims Kenneth Williams Bill Owen Lis Fraser Terence Longden Fenella Fielding Hattie Jacques Esma Cannon Stanley Unwin Eleanor Summerfield Ed Devereaux
Case	?
RPI	$17.50	Music	Bruce Montgomery

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 and found this a far more interesting episode than Carry On Cruising, which I have previously reviewed. 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. This particular episode was the fifth and was released in 1961.

    In this particular episode, Bert Handy (Sidney James) is the owner of a company called Helping Hands Limited. As the name suggests, this particular company will help its customers with any request, no matter how insane or absurd the request may be. It is partly because of this that the show tends to appear more as a collection of short stories rather than a complete movie, but it sort of works. The usual familiar cast act as the company employees in the movie and each is assigned their daily tasks based on their personal experience. Some of the tasks include walking a chimpanzee, demolishing a house and a wine tasting that needs no explanation as to the outcome.

    My favourite from this episode would have to be the landlord played by Stanley Unwin in his only Carry On role. His character cannot speak properly and makes for some extremely challenging scenes that are very amusing to listen to. Each word is broken in half and then swapped around as best as I can guess and you really need to concentrate to pick up on his complaints to the Helping Hands agency.

    This episode features all the usual stars such as Kenneth Williams (my favourite), Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims and Lance Percival, just to name the big players.

Video

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

    The transfer is rather average-looking and exhibits 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 office walls.

    This particular Carry On is in black and white. The shades of grey are enough to distinguish different objects and provide an adequate level of detail with good levels of contrast.

    There were no obvious MPEG artefacts in this particular episode. Aliasing is rare but there were two very obvious episodes on Kenneth Connor's coat at 62:11 and 64:20. Film artefacts are frequent and the majority of them are in the form of scratches or dust. There is also a large number of small artefacts that are white that do prove a bit distracting at times.

    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 mono soundtrack. These movies rely on humour and wit rather than directional sound effects but a minimum of a stereo track would have at least opened out the soundstage a little.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times.

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

    The musical score is by Bruce Montgomery who scored quite a number of these episodes and is quite 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 also not used by this track.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing

• Nothing

    Overall, this was the least humorous of the Carry On titles that I have seen to date, however, this comment will not be enough to deter the true fan. Hang on a minute - the tagline for this movie was "Funniest Carry On ever!"

    The video quality is quite good considering its age - the source material for the transfer is in remarkably good condition.

    The audio is in mono but does not suffer from any dropouts or other sonic blemishes.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall