1978 British comedy film by Gerald Thomas
Carry On Emmannuelle is a 1978 British comedy film, the 30th release in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). The film was to be the final Carry On for many regulars, including Kenneth Williams (in his 26th Carry On), Kenneth Connor (in his 17th), Joan Sims (in her 24th) and Peter Butterworth (in his 16th). Jack Douglas is the only regular from this film to bridge the gap to Carry On Columbus. Beryl Reid, Henry McGee and Suzanne Danielle make their only appearances in the series here. The film featured a change in style, becoming more openly sexual and explicit. This was highlighted by the implied behaviour of Danielle's character, though she does not bare any more flesh than any other Carry On female lead. These changes brought the film closer to the then popular series of X-rated Confessions... comedies, or indeed the actual Emmanuelle films that it parodies. This film, as well as the initial release of Carry On England, were the only films in the series to be certified AA by the British Board of Film Censors, which restricted audiences to those aged 14 and over. The film was followed by the final installment of the series Carry On Columbus in 1992.
Plot
Emmannuelle Prévert relieves the boredom of a flight on Concorde by seducing timid Theodore Valentine. She returns home to London to surprise her husband, the French ambassador, Émile Prevert but first surprises the butler, Lyons. He removes her coat, only to find that she has left her dress on the aircraft. The chauffeur, Leyland, housekeeper, Mrs Dangle, and aged boot-boy, Richmond sense saucy times ahead… and they are right! Émile is dedicated to his bodybuilding, leaving a sexually frustrated Emmannuelle to find pleasure with everyone from the Lord Chief Justice to chat show host Harold Hump. Theodore is spurned by Emmannuelle, who has genuinely forgotten their airborne encounter, and despite reassurances from his mother, exacts revenge by revealing Emmannuelle's antics to the press. However, after a visit to her doctor, she discovers that she is pregnant and decides to settle down to a faithful marriage with Émile… and dozens of children.
Critical reception
Critical response was universally negative, even more so than Carry on England which preceded it, and Carry On Columbus which succeeded it 14 years later. Philip French said of it: "This relentless sequence of badly-written, badly-timed dirty jokes is surely one of the most morally and aesthetically offensive pictures to emerge from a British studio."[3] Christopher Tookey considered the film to be "embarrassingly feeble".[4] In the 1980s Williams himself said of the film: "The script left a lot to be desired and I have to admit that I found many of the jokes quite repulsive". The film performed poorly at the box office and during the first two decades following its release it was only broadcast on UK television in a late night slot, leading author Adrian Rigelsford to comment in 1996 that out of the thirty-one Carry On films it was "the one that barely anybody's seen".
Whilst many other Carry Ons have continued to be popular, opinions of Carry on Emmannuelle and its immediate predecessor and successor have not improved over the passing of time, and Carry On Emmannuelle is often considered to be the worst film in the series. Tom Cole, writing in the Radio Times, found it "undignified" and "laugh-free", noting that the Lolita-esque performance of Suzanne Danielle was "unintentionally creepy".[7] And both Cole and Ian Freer, writing for Empire, laid the blame for the death of the series squarely at the film's door.[8]
In a 2018 retrospective on the series, the British Film Institute named Carry On Emmannuelle as one of the series' five worst films, alongside Carry On Girls (1973), Carry on England (1976), That's Carry On! (1977), and Carry On Columbus (1992).[9]
In 2023, actor Larry Dann dedicated a chapter of his autobiography "Oh, What A Lovely Memoir" to share his memories of the making of this production, where he recalls members of the audience walking out before the credits rolled.[10]
