The Carry On series

5 May - June 2005, Reading Room

The bfi National Library celebrates the Carry On series with a special display from 5 May. It will feature items from the library, alongside production material from the Gerald Thomas Collection, housed in bfi Special Collections.

Gerald Thomas (1920-1993)

When Gerald Thomas died, his producer partner of 40 years Peter Rogers said: 'His epitaph will be that he directed all the Carry On films.'

Indeed, for an intense twenty-year period, Thomas was the jovial Ringmaster who playfully put Sidney James, Jim Dale, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Peter Butterworth and the rest of the gang through their innuendo paces. In the words of Carry On England star, Melvyn Hayes, there were "no clever key-hole shots - the director just pointed the camera at the actors and let the 'clowns' do the 'funnies'."

Thomas' brief was deceptively simple. First make the films come in under budget- the first, Carry On Sergeant, weighed in at £74,000. Second, make them on schedule- six weeks was the average although several were made in four!

An amiable, good-natured boss, his people skills were exemplary. Although his actors would often complain, they would always do what he told them. Whether it be Charles Hawtrey strapped to a mechanised torture device in Carry On Spying, Kenneth Williams pelted with fruit on the pillory in Carry On Dick, or Barbara Windsor sinking up to her knees in mud on 'location' in the Pinewood Studios orchard for Carry On Camping. Each and every one would return for the cut-price salary and slapstick humiliation, with a smile on their face.

But it was Thomas' gift for knowing what did and didn't work in lowbrow comedy that never failed him and remained the stolid foundation stone for the success of Carry On. Vince Powell, editing the script for the Thames television special, Carry On Christmas in 1969, recalled that: 'we read through the script together and Gerry Thomas was making notes: 'page five, two shit jokes, no prick jokes. Page twelve, too many tit jokes not enough prick jokes.' Here was this debonair, well-dressed man with a complete breakdown of what made the Carry Ons tick.'

First and foremost, Thomas was an editor. Having jettisoned his medical career after war service with the Royal Sussex Regiment, Thomas joined the film industry in 1946. Employed in the cutting rooms of Two Cities Films at Denham Studios he worked on such productions as Carol Reed's Odd Man Out and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. With Two Cities under the auspices of the Rank Organisation, Thomas' graduation was speedy; working as assistant editor on the likes of the John Mills mystery, The October Man, and receiving his first full credit as editor on the Margaret Lockwood bodice-ripper, Madness of the Heart.

His elder brother, Ralph Thomas, had made his directorial debut in 1949 and by 1952 Gerald had been invited to cut Ralph's thriller, Venetian Bird. Becoming his brother's regular editor, Gerald worked on the hit comedy Doctor in the House (1953) and the submarine adventure Above Us the Waves (1955).

In charge of Beaconsfield Studios, Peter Rogers was well aware of the successful director-producer partnership of Ralph Thomas and Betty Box, whom Rogers had married in 1948. With the Thomas brothers and the Rogers regularly socialising, Peter Rogers elected Gerald Thomas to direct his Children's Film Foundation melodrama, Circus Friends.

A moderate hit, it wasn't until the taut, Hitchcockian Time Lock, that Thomas was seen as a director with a flair for the dramatic. Relating the tale of a young boy trapped in a security time-locked bank vault, Thomas shot the film in three weeks on a budget of £30,000. The partnership delivered several low-budget thrillers before Thomas took on a comedy musical starring the rock'n'roll pioneer, Tommy Steele. From a screenplay by Norman Hudis, The Duke Wore Jeans was the first comedy feature from the triumvirate that would create the Carry On series from a much rejected, over-long script proposal called 'The Bull Boys'.

The end result was Carry On Sergeant: "which, in the words of distributors and cinema managers, turned out to be one of the funniest and most successful comedies for many, many years. "No one imagined a series of such longevity and popularity, although both Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas embarked on a career-defining decision to follow each Carry On with another one until the public grew tired of them. In 1975, with 27 Carry On films, a stage show, 4 television specials and an ATV sitcom series under his belt, Gerald Thomas commented that: "now that Peter Rogers has set his own limit on the series by saying that the last 'Carry On' will be the first to lose money we continue to carry on merrily."

Although the end was fast-approaching, Thomas happily remained the custodian of the Carry On flame, producing television compilations of his comedy films, actively pursuing financial backing for a new film and, finally in 1992, agreeing to direct Carry On Columbus for producer John Goldstone.

Reflecting on this resurrection of the series after fourteen years, Thomas revealed that: "the new generation tend to be stand-up comics and individual performers but they have worked in with us very well. The whole thing is a team from top to bottom and they have joined the team. I have great admiration for them. They are very talented and I hoped they would come down to my level. No-one twisted anyone's arms and we didn't offer them fortunes of money; they all just wanted to be in a Carry On."

Now very much a British institution, the Carry On series was never intended as high art but simple, family entertainment. Lavatorial rather than satirical, by its very accessibility and carnivalesque delight in the most base of human pleasures the films of Gerald Thomas stand tall as some of the most successful, beloved and imperishable in British cinema.

Written by Robert Ross, author of new publication, The Carry On Story (Publisher: Reynolds and Hearn) . Robert Ross is one of the leading authorities on the history of British comedy, and his numerous books include The Complete Sid James, The Monty Python Encyclopedia, Steptoe and Son, and Mr Carry On, the authorised bipgraphy of Carry On producer Peter Rogers.

Gerald Thomas: Filmography (as director)

1956

Circus Friends

1957

Time Lock

The Vicious Circle

1958

Chain Of Events

The Solitary Child

The Duke Wore Jeans

Carry On Sergeant

1959

Carry On Nurse

Carry On Teacher

1960

Please Turn Over

Carry On Constable

Watch Your Stern

1961

No Kidding

Carry On Regardless

Raising The Wind

1962

Carry On Cruising

Twice Round The Daffodils

The Iron Maiden

1963

Nurse On Wheels

Carry On Cabby

Carry On Jack

1964

Carry On Spying

Carry On Cleo

1965

The Big Job

Carry On Cowboy

1966

Carry On Screaming!

Don't Lose Your Head

1967

Follow That Camel

Carry On Doctor

1968

Carry On… Up The Khyber

Carry On Camping

1969

Carry On Again Doctor

Carry On Up The Jungle

1970

Carry On Loving

Carry On Henry

1971

Carry On At Your Convenience

Carry On Matron

1972

Carry On Abroad

Bless This House

1973

Carry On Girls

1974

Carry On Dick

1975

Carry On Behind

1976

Carry On England

1977

That's Carry On

1978

Carry On Emmanuelle

1986

The Second Victory (And Producer)

1992

Carry On Columbus