Carry on Teacher

This one seems to me to be an underrated “Carry On” film – which, again, the series website mini-review puts down by labeling it atypical (the school setting making CARRY ON TEACHER feel more like an unofficial entry in the contemporaneous “St. Trinian’s” franchise, which I’m only vaguely familiar with and has actually just been revived)!

While there are some flat spots on occasion, and a few of the gags are extended to their ultimate detriment, the film is generally hilarious (with a fair share of side-splitting moments); besides, the series’ notorious lewdness – mainly evident in the previous entry, CARRY ON NURSE (1959), during its closing moment – is inescapable here, given that Joan Sims’ physical education teacher has been suggestively named Allcock (which Leslie Philips’ character keeps harping on, having fallen for her at first-sight)!

Several of the actors from NURSE return here: these include unacknowledged series performers such as the afore-mentioned Philips (again, incarnating the playboy type but who also happens to be a child psychologist!), Rosalind Knight (her small role as the studious nurse has been amplified here to the similarly workaholic school auditor – though she’s made to share a hesitant romance with Kenneth Connor, playing the nuclear scientist this time around but relentlessly flubbing his lines in anxiety) and Cyril Chamberlain (the delusional patient of CARRY ON NURSE is now the school janitor).

Kenneth Williams, then, is the English Literature teacher (he’s been assigned to stage “Romeo & Juliet” for the annual prize-day – the students, however, are disappointed that the text has been significantly ‘cleaned-up’!); Charles Hawtrey is the music instructor (who is also to provide accompaniment for the play – the constant bickering between both teachers over whether predominance should be given to Shakespeare’s words or the dramatic emphasis allowed by the score is one of the film’s mainstays, with Williams questioning Hawtrey’s very talent by comparing the latter’s work to a dirge…and, sure enough, that’s what his eventual ‘incidental music’ sounds like on the day of the performance!); corpulent Hattie Jacques is once again the indomitable female type, playing the maths professor.

Ted Ray – whom I’d never heard of, but is supposedly a comedy institution in Britain – is the long-suffering acting headmaster. He’s against punishing students, though he’s almost driven to it after the children turn the school – the address, by the way, is on Maudlin Street! – upside down during the inspectors’ one-week stay…except that this transpires to be a deliberate scheme on their part to quash Ray’s chance at a position in another college, because they don’t want him to leave!! The latter element actually leads to an uncharacteristic, sentimental GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS-style ending.

Among the highlights are Connor’s hand-made rocket going through the roof during science class, Hawtrey falling through the floor of a room, Sims’ judo attack on the persistent Philips, the students’ various pranks on their instructors (such as having the tea spiked with alcohol, spreading itching powder in the teachers’ room, or faking a bomb plant), and the disastrous climactic performance of “Romeo & Juliet”.

P.S. Incidentally, a British comic who excelled in playing schoolmasters was Will Way – and in one of these, THE GOOSE STEPS OUT (1942), Charles Hawtrey himself was featured as a student!

The third Carry On film in the series, Teacher still manages to maintain the gentle, clean fun of its predecessors.

Many of the favourites are present here (Williams, Hawtrey, Sims, Jacques, Connor) and are well at ease in the roles they would make their own for the next 20 odd years.

Kenneth Connor is a delight as the bumbling science teacher who finds himself falling for the prudish school's inspector while Leslie Phillips is as smooth as he ever was as the well-oiled child psychologist. Ding dong!

It is interesting to note here that at this early stage, it is Joan Sims who plays the blonde bombshell in the series - a much different role to the screaming, bawdy characters she would play later.

To sum up, Teacher is basically a series of set pieces in which the kids of Maudlin Street School, so desperate for their current headmaster not to leave, set about causing havoc so as to create a bad impression for the school inspectors.

Of course it's all harmless, St. Trinians meets Greyfriars fun and there's a happy ending too. In all, a great addition to the series.

The third Carry On film and arguably the best of the first three, this one is amusing from start and always full of laughs. The jokes are funnier than in the two previous entries, and Leslie Phillips is in particularly good form this time. It is still very silly, and in terms of the plot it is not all that much better than 'Carry On Sergeant' and 'Carry On Nurse', with the practical jokes becoming a bit tiresome towards the end and a story that is very simplistic. Still, the film comes highly recommended from me, as everything seems to fit together rather well, including appropriately used music. It is not a perfect film, but definitely a bit of a delight to watch.

The third of the Carry On series finds the gang up to their necks in strife at Maudlin Street Secondary Modern School. Headmaster William Wakefield (Ted Ray) is a fine and good man who doesn't believe in corporal punishment, this has endeared him to the children of the school. However, he is considering moving on to another school to further his career, but first he has to oversee the arrival of two school inspectors and hope all goes smoothly. Fat chance of that happening, the kids have got wind or Wakefield wanting to leave and start to sabotage everything, with the teachers suffering the brunt of things.

"Teacher" is a warm hearted entry in the series, choosing prat-falls and genial set-pieces for its comedy. The teachers bicker and crack under the strain of the kids pranks and sabotages, while there's also a couple of nice romantic threads bubbling away. Also of note is the not so sly debate on corporal punishment, Wakefield is firmly against it, while robust Maths teacher Grace Short (Hattie Jacques) is the other end of the scale - she's cane mad! There's a feminist angle as well, adding some more depth to Norman Hudis' screenplay.

Ultimately though it's about the laughs, about the chaos, and watching the series regulars go about their way with skill and tongues in cheek. A hit at the box office, Carry On Teacher is quintessentially an early Carry On movie, with wry social observations and a harmless naivety towards the education system, there's not much to dislike here. 8/10

If there is anything that Carry On Teacher immediately does better than its predecessors, it is that there's a much stronger narrative at play, however skeletal it may be. We're slowly moving away from a simple frame environment in which each character was given their own slice-of-life vignette; while the narrative is still a bit thin, this is a story that progresses. It's a much warmer-hearted entry than the previous two, choosing prat-falls and genial set-pieces for its comedy, the teachers bicker and crack under the strain of the kid's pranks and sabotages. While there are some flat spots on occasion, and a few of the gags are extended to their ultimate detriment, Carry On Teacher is generally hilarious with wry social observations and a harmless naivety towards the education system backed by plenty of great wordplay and slapstick pratfalls, though the film tends to favour the latter more so than the former, mileage may vary.