Strictly average movie

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The third film in the famous 'Carry On' series and the only one to star radio comic Ted Ray. He plays William 'Wakey' Wakefield, headmaster of Maudin School in London. The cane was still in use in British schools at this time, but Wakey does not believe in it. He has applied for a new job, his pupils don't want him to leave and begin a campaign of anarchy designed to make him ( and the other staff members ) look incompetent. Child psychologist Alistair Grigg ( Leslie Phillips ) and school inspector Felicity Wheeler ( Rosalind Knight ) visit about this time, and witness one disaster after another; the teachers getting drunk when alcohol from the science lab is put in the staff room kettle, music master Mr.Michael Bean ( Charles Hawtrey ) falling through a hole in a floor, gym mistress Miss Alcock's ( Joan Sims ) shorts splitting during strenuous exercise, the scenery collapses during the school play, and there's a surfeit of stunts involving itching powder, fake spiders and so on.While at times this feels more like a 'St.Trinians' movie than a 'Carry On', it delivers the goods in the laughter stakes. Norman Hudis was better at constructing story lines than his successor Talbot Rothwell, and Ted Ray is very good as the put-upon headmaster ( a role planned originally for Eric Barker ). The old gang of Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor are fortunately still around. Strange to see Hawtrey as one of the masters when previously he'd been 'head naughty boy' in the Will Hay films. Two of the teachers find romance; Miss Wheeler with Connor's shy Gregory Adams, and Grigg with Miss Alcock. As soon as the old lecher claps eyes on the latter, he mutters her name thus: "All...cock!". Among the 'saboteurs' are a couple of future stars - Richard O'Sullivan ( whose character is called 'Robin', believe it or not! ) and Carol White ( of the groundbreaking B.B.C. play 'Cathy Come Home' ).Funniest moment? The shorts ripping scene. Thanks to Sims its better than it should be. And made funnier by the fact Phillips is standing behind her.I also love Williams' view on corporal punishment: "You bend a child double in order to give him an upright character?".Ray made no further 'Carry On' appearances; his place in the next entry - 'Carry On Constable' - was taken by a newcomer to the series - Sidney James.

I enjoyed the first two entries more than this one. The third go around has the Carry On crew teaching at a school. They are headed by Kenneth Conner, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims and Charles Hawtrey. To me, no one stands out in this film like the first two films. Sims character is named "Alcock" which is a little shocking. Couldn't they pick a more decent name for her. Two psychiatrists visit the school to see how well it is being run by the faculty. The man is instantly attracted to Joan Sims when he sees her. I have always had a problem with Joan Sims and Barbara Windsor playing a sexy role. They are not sexy to me at all, and they do not have great shapes, even for the 60's and 70's. I really do like Joan Sims as an actress, but not as a sex symbol. There was a little to much sexual innuendo from the children which I did not care for. I know that is what Carry On became later on, but there is a fine line and I think it was crossed in this entry. It did have a very touching ending like the first one did. The kids sabotage the play in an effort to get the headmaster to stay at the school. He decides to stay in the final scene. Overall it is a slightly above average movie, with a nice ending. Thankfully Sid James would appear in 14 out of the next 19 films. He really gives the films a spark.

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 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.