People We Like: Joan Sims

The latest Person We Like is Joan Sims - The First Lady of Carry-On (maybe even more so than Hattie Jacques or Barbara Windsor) - who is certainly one of those people we have liked for almost as long as I have been going to movies, back to the days of CARRY ON TEACHER or CARRY ON NURSE. A great British stalwart, Joan (1930-2001) enlivened any number of films, before, during and after her CARRY ON heyday. Her father was a railway station master and she used to put on funny voices to amuse waiting passengers, so she went into acting locally and eventually got into RADA. 

Her 162 credits (on IMDb) going back to the early 50s include appearances in DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, BELLES OF ST TRINIANS, west end revues in London, DOCTOR AT SEA. She is very funny as Blodwyn the naive Welsh girl who has never left Wales in the 1959 comedy I liked, UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS, and as Beryl the maid in PLEASE TURN OVER in 1960. She even pops up in the Trash Classic PASSPORT TO SHAME in 1958 as the office telephonist.

Her first CARRY ON was CARRY ON NURSE, followed by TEACHER where she has some good moments as fitness teacher Sarah Allcock, sparring with Leslie Phillips Other CARRY ONs followed, as well as parts in routine comedies like TWICE ROUND THE DAFFODILS, she did television work with the likes of Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery and Benny Hill, and was Calpurnia in CARRY ON CLEO, one of her harridan wives. We liked her saloon queen in CARRY ON COWBOY admiring the size of Sid's gun (he's from Texas, they all have big ones there..) - she was Desiree Dubarry in CARRY ON PIMPERNEL, Emily Bung in CARRY ON SCREAMING, and famously Lady Ruff-Diamond in CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER with her ad-lib "I feel a little plastered" as the ceiling falls on them. Her Joan Fussey in CARRY ON CAMPING was tres amusing too, another shrew. She was in most of the CARRY ONs but their quality was diminishing till the final ones looked very cheap, and of course they - and the regulars like Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtry, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor etc, - were never paid much for them and never got any repeat fees when they were endlessly re-cycled for television. Even now, every Bank Holiday has a cluster of CARRY ONs on the cheap cable channels. She was later in some MISS MARPLEs and worked with Victoria Wood and in other popular series like AS TIME GOES BY. She was in Cukor's LOVE AMONG THE RUINS with Olivier and Katharine Hepburn in 1975. Her last role, in 2000, was as part of the all-star cast of THE LAST OF THE BLONDE BOMBSHELLS, led by Judi Dench, Leslie Caron, Billie Whitelaw, Cleo Laine, Olympia Dukakis, and the other great veteran June Whitfield. It was a fitting cap on a great career.

As with most comedians there was a dark side to Joan, and she had battles with depression and alcoholism, Her memoir HIGH SPIRIT details it all and is a very revealing portrait of her life and work and has numerous tales on all her CARRY ON pals. Despite several romances she never married. 
Surprisingly, one of her flings was with Tyrone Power! as during his time in England in the mid-50s, he was appearing in the annual charity event NIGHT OF 100 STARS, doing a song and dance number and Joan was one of the showgirls (below) dancing with him (others included Anna Massey, Jean Kent, and Brenda Bruce). Ty used to pop around to Joan's for bacon and eggs, and they had a sort of romance until he was summoned back to Hollywood.  Joan, a much loved funny lady, died aged 71 in 2001. More on Joan and CARRY ON at label ...

They carried on ....

More popular cinema, after those sci-fi, fantasy classics? Here's CARRY ON  ....

An hour and a half of bliss was spent just watching CARRY ON CLEO again, maybe the best of those British CARRY ON films ... which began in the late '50s with TEACHER, SERGEANT and NURSE (as the Rank DOCTOR films, twee by comparison, were running of steam) and hit their stride as the '60s developed - along with Hammer Films they were a Great British Institution and we dutifully saw most of them on general release, often groaning at the obvious jokes and gags. But in 1964 when I was new in London, something odd happened - the CARRY ONs gained a modicum of critical respectability - I remember that review by the esteemed Penelope Gilliatt in THE OBSERVER actually praising CARRY ON SPYING, in fact in was a rave review.

CARRY ON CLEO was more of the same, during their great years, with decent production values, followed by CARRY ON SCREAMING (Fenella Fielding: "Do you mind if I smoke?", Kenneth Williams: "Frying tonight"), CARRY ON COWBOY - that's the one mainly shot in a muddy field in Surrey where Joan Sims as saloon madam asks the Rumpo Kid (Sid James) for his gun and says "My, thats a big one" to which he retorts "I'm from Texas, maam, we all have big ones there...". CARRY ON CRUISING/CAMPING were fun too, and they poked fun at Henry VIII, The French Revolution etc. I didn't much care for the hospital ones and of course they began running out of steam during the late '60s/early 70s when their kind of innocent smut was no longer in vogue in the counterculture era; British cinema then was churning out CONFESSIONS OF ... and rubbish like PERCY. The witless CARRY ON LOVING in 1975 was pitifully cheap tat.

The flicks were scripted by Talbot Rothwell, produced by penny-pinching Peter Rogers, and directed by Gerald Thomas, as the films got tattier.  CARRY ON ...UP THE KHYBER in 1968 must have been the last good one, with some terrific gags and situations, not least when the wonderous Joan Sims as Lady Ruff-Diamond says "I'm a little plastered", an ad-lib as the ceiling collapses on them .... Kenneth Williams of course is The Khasi of Kalabar, Sid is Lord Ruff-Diamond looking forward to his tiffin, Charles Hawtry is Private Widdle, and they are all perfect. 

CLEO though is wonderful and works as a peplum as Kenneth's Caesar screams "Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me", Amanda Barrie is a dizzy Cleo in her bath of asses milk, and Jim Dale and Kenneth Connor are the resourceful British slaves, who are sold to Roman matrons and have to drag up as Vestal Virgins; there's also Sheila Hancock as Senna Pod, a shrew wife (left, with the square wheel) , and Joan Sims is bliss again as Calpurnia, Caesar's wife. Joan was a stalwart, along with Hattie Jacques, Kenneth and Hawtry through all the series best ones - Barbara Windsor, Frankie Howerd and others popped in and out. The series of course were made for peanuts, the cast never earned very much - no repeat fees for the endless showings of them or compilations of their best bits, particularly on bank holidays, when cable channels here screen them all day (if only Barbara had a royalty for every time her bra flew off!).  

Carry On plate & BBC CD

I got Kenneth's autograph once, when he was doing a Shaw play with Ingrid Bergman in 1971; he had quite a theatrical career (working with the likes of Edith Evans, Maggie Smith, Orson Welles) before getting too identified with the series, and of course we love his ROUND THE HORNE radio shows too, particuarly those "Julian and Sandy" episodes, (now happily on cd). [Aside: I was on a train to Brighton on Christmas Eve 1986 with my christmas shopping, when I realised the man sitting opposite me was Kenneth's radio pal Hugh Paddick - I regret now I did not tell him how much those radio shows meant to us, as teenagers in Ireland]. Williams' diaries of course are compulsive reading .... The Carry Ons like the Hammers even had stamps issued celebrating them ...

Those British comedies ....

An affectionate look at some of those late '50s/early '60s British comedies we liked - its the performers that matter here, those comedians and character players who made even the dullest movie watchable. So we dedicate this to the great Joan Sims and Hattie and Kenneth and Charles and Richard Wattis and ...

PLEASE TURN OVER, 1959 - An early CARRY ON in all but name, by the regular team Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas, with regulars Leslie Philips,  Joan Sims and Charles Hawtrey (guesting as a jeweller). This is set in smart suburbia where martinet father Ted Ray and ditzy wife Jean Kent (her driving lesson with Lionel Jeffries is a hoot) preside - their daughter Julia Lockwood (Margaret's daughter) writes a raunchy best-seller and the locals recognize that she has written about them and soon chaos erupts throughout this small English town with predictable results. Its good fun, with Joan Sims as the maid and others like Colin Gordon, Joan Hickson and Dilys Laye providing the laughs. A pleasant afternoon time-waster.

MAKE MINE MINK - This is a delightful 1960 comic caper with a sterling cast headed by Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques and Elspeth Duxbury as 3 old dears in a mansion flat who discover they can steal fur coats which can be sold to fund Athene's charity. Young Billie Whitelaw is their maid, she is an ex-con herself but is dating policeman Jack Hedley. Terry Thomas is another companion of theirs so cue much hilarity as our foursome plot their robberies. Irene Handl is sheer delight as Madame Spolinski, owner of a fur shop they are targeting. Kennth Williams pops in as well.

As the blurb says: Zany collection of misfits led by aging military man (Terry-Thomas) go on a spree of robbing mink coats. An unlikely trio of women (Athene Seyler, Hattie Jacques, and Elspeth Duxbury) find new reasons to live ... until their housekeeper (Billie Whitelaw), an ex-con is suspected of the robberies. Again, it captures that cusp of the '60s time period perfectly and shows what good writing and a quality cast can do for a basic premise, as directed by Robert Asher. 

ALIVE AND KICKING - a more '50s offering, this 1958 comedy needs to be better known. Another trio of old dears: redoubtable Sybil Thorndike, Kathleen Harrison and Estelle Winwood are to be split up at their old folks home and decide to run away. They end up in a boat heading to the west of Ireland where they land on one of the islands where they find perfect cottages they can take over.
These belong to returning American Stanley Holloway but he is soon out of the picture as the old gals take over the local industry of knitting Ara sweaters and soon have a booming local industry going. We have to add in the compulsory Richard Harris among the locals as well as Marjorie Rhodes, Joyce Carey and singer Brendon O'Dowda. Directed by Cyril Frankel - there are no reviews on this at IMDB and they insist it is a 1964 title, but it is definitely 1958 when I saw it as a kid.

UPSTAIRS AND DOWNSTAIRS - another delighted 1959 comedy from the Rank Organisation, directed by Ralph Thomas, in colour and with a very colorful cast! On marrying the boss's daughter, Richard takes his father-in-law's advice to hire a live-in domestic. He soon finds good help is hard to come by. Run-ins follow with dipsomaniacs, bank robbers, a Welsh lass who takes one look at London and runs, and an Italian charmer who turns the place into a bawdy house. Then when Ingrid arrives from Sweden things actually start to get complicated. This is one I enjoyed as a kid, as we watch Michael Craig and Anne Heywood as the newly-weds with James Robertson Justice bluff as ever as father-in-law.

Party girl Claudia + sailors

Joan Hickson is of course a delight as the tipsy cook, Joan Sims is Welsh Blodwyn who has never left Wales; those continental girls Mylene Demongeot and that new Italian girl Claudia Cardinale sparkle (five years later Craig would be supporting her in Visconti's SANDRA - a favourite of mine, Claudia, Craig labels) - Sid James is the local cop, Reginald Beckwith, Daniel Massey, Margalo Gilmore are fun and Joseph Tomelty and Nora Nicholson play the aged bank robbers using the kitchen to tunnel through to the bank next door .... laughs all round then.

THE NAKED TRUTH - a brilliant 1957 comedy utilising Peter Sellers in several roles, he was in the ascendant then. Dastardly Dennis Price is blackmailing several celebrities over secrets in their past which he will publish in his scandal magazine unless they pay up, so they decide to club together to kill him after their individual attempts fail - resulting in high comedy, as directed by Mario Zampi. We have crime writer Peggy Mount and her timid daughter Joan Sims, tv presenter Sellers, glamour girl Shirley Eaton and Terry Thomas is not as respectable as he lets on .... This one cemented Sellers' reputation for various roles as he and Terry Thomas became the major farceurs of the era - both starring in the classic  I'M ALRIGHT JACK and CARLTON BROWN OF THE F.O.

TOO MANY CROOKS - Another great 1959 Terry Thomas comedy also by Mario Zampi (the 3 here, MAKE MINE MINK, NAKED TRUTH and this are a good boxset). George Cole's hapless gang set out to kidnap cad Terry Thomas's daughter but end up with his wife Brenda De Banzie instead. Terry though does not play along and does not want her back, so Brenda takes control of the useless gang to exact her own revenge on her scheming husband. Sounds familiar? It must be the same plot used for that Bette Midler comedy RUTHLESS PEOPLE ...  it is an ideal role for the great Brenda De Banzie, Thomas is his usual caddish self and the crooks include Sid James, Bernard Bresslaw, Joe Melia. Add in John le Mesurier, Sydney Tafler and Nicholas Parsons for added humour. It is just as funny now as it was 50 years ago, as indeed all these are.

I covered another favourite HOW TO MURDER A RICH UNCLE from 1957 at Comedy, Nigel Patrick labels, featuring Athene Seyler again, Katie Johnson and Wendy Hiller.  What a great period it was for comedies from those Ealings like THE LADYKILLERS onwards... there's Sellers again in multiple roles in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED, and of course those first CARRY ONs: TEACHER, NURSE, SERGEANT etc;
and that other favourite of mine the perfectly '50s AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY (comedy, Diana Dors  labels) with Diana Dors and Margaret Rutherford, as well as those early ST TRINIANS with the likes of Alistair Sim, Beryl Reid, Joyce Grenfell and the others, not to mention Dirk's DOCTORs: IN THE HOUSE, AT SEA, AT LARGE etc with Kay Kendall, Kenneth More, Brigitte Bardot, Brenda De Banzie and all the regular farceurs. These were very '50s creations - DOCTOR IN DISTRESS in 1963 did not work at all, it was that new swinging era and the Doctors were suddenly very dated. The '60s CARRY ON's began well with CLEO, COWBOY, CRUISING, SCREAMING, SPYING but too degenerated into tat by the '70s.