In the Shower with Leslie Phillips

 

Fig. 1 Leslie Phillips and Shirley Eaton in Carry On Constable (1960)

 Fig. 2 Leslie Phillips and Andrea Allan in Spanish Fly (1976)

 

 

On-screen nudity can either be suggestive or explicit. 

 

But just as a porn film that lacks graphic content has no raison d'être and will fail to arouse its viewers, so too a comedy that moves beyond sexual innuendo and the briefest flash of bare flesh into the full-frontal realm will ultimately cease to amuse its audience. 

 

For it seems that in order to sustain laughter, even a risqué comedy requires bath towels and bed sheets. It must remain rooted, that is to say, in a sexually repressed culture of inhibition and embarrassment; a nudge-nudge, wink-wink culture of drawn curtains and lights out - not a pornified culture of indecent exposure.

 

This is illustrated by two scenes in films starring Leslie Phillips ...

 

The first is in one of my favourite films of the Carry On series - Carry On Constable (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1960). 

 

In his role as PC Tom Potter, Phillips is called to a house to investigate a suspected intruder. But what he discovers is a young woman (played by Shirley Eaton) taking a bath. Whilst viewers are treated to the sight of her naked back, the scene retains its charm, its innocence, and its good humour. 

 

In contrast, however, there's a rather gratuitous shower scene in a film described by Barry Norman [1] as the least funny British comedy ever made, Spanish Fly (dir. Bob Kellett, 1976).

 

Now in his fifties, but still playing the smooth-talking Lothario for which he was famous, Phillips is directing a photo-shoot in Menorca with a group of four models, including an Australian girl known as Bruce (played by Andrea Allan), whom he encounters in a hotel bathroom. 

 

Whilst viewers are afforded plenty of opportunity to ogle her (rather magnificent) breasts and watch as Phillips washes her back, the scene lacks precisely the charm, the innocence, and good humour of the one in Carry On Constable and makes for slightly uncomfortable viewing in an age of #MeToo. 

 

Sadly, as the sauciness of the late-1950s and early-1960s gave way to the soft-core seediness of the 1970s and Phillips et al were obliged to compete against much younger, raunchier actors - such as Robin Askwith, who starred in the Confessions movies (1974-77) - the triumph of latrinalia was complete [2].  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Barry Norman, for those who don't know, was a British film critic and journalist. He famously presented a film review series on the BBC from 1972 to 1998. 

      I tend to think his assessment of Spanish Fly is a bit harsh. It's not quite as dire as many like to believe and although the script is piss poor (much like Sir Percy's wine), it has a strong cast that not only stars Leslie Phillips and Terry-Thomas, but also features Frank Thornton, Sue Lloyd, and seventies sex bomb Nadiuska. 

      Plus, the film also features a rather catchy song performed by the Irish singer Geraldine, called 'Fly Me' (written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter and released as single on EMI in July 1975). Infinitely more enjoyable than anything released by recently deceased (and hugely overrated) Sinéad O'Connor, readers are invited to click here.    

[2] Many critics at the time decried this triumph of soft-porn smut, largely blaming it on the sexual infantilism of the viewing public. It should be noted, however, that the British sex comedies of the 1970s were enormously successful at the box office and have since undergone significant critical reappraisal. 

      Ultimately, although I prefer Carry On Constable to Spanish Fly (or Confessions of a Window Cleaner), I would hope that my view isn't simply rooted in a mixture of moralism and snobbery. 

 

 

Bonus 1: Click here for the Carry On Constable trailer. 

 

Bonus 2: Click here for the Spanish Fly trailer (in HD). 

 

Bonus 3: Click here for the VHS trailer for Confessions of a Window Cleaner (dir. Val Guest, 1974).

In Memory of Leslie Phillips

Leslie Phillips (1924-2022)

 

I. 

 

I was genuinely saddened to hear of the death of Leslie Phillips, who has always been one of my favourite comic actors. 

 

I loved him in the Carry On films - particularly as PC Tom Potter in Carry On Constable (1960), which is one of the best in the series in my view - and I loved him in the Doctor films - particularly as Dr Gaston Grimsdyke in Doctor in Clover (1966), trying to look young and trendy so as to seduce Jeannine Belmond, the beautiful physiotherapist played by Elizabeth Ercy. 

But I also loved him in lesser known films from this period, such as In the Doghouse (1961), in which he plays the kind-hearted vet Jimmy Fox-Upton alongside the lovely Irish actress Peggy Cummins, playing showgirl Sally Huxley (partnered by a chimpanzee in her act who is amusingly billed as the Hairy Houdini).

 

 

II. 

 

Once, whilst in a departure lounge at Heathrow waiting to board a flight to Barcelona, I sat next to Phillips, who - like his inspiration Terry Thomas - had a house in Ibiza. 

 

I wanted to say hello, but, on the other hand, I didn't want to pester him and one never knows with famous people whether they like to be approached or not. 

 

Also, some actors prefer it if you mention their more serious roles from later in their career and Phillips, lest we forget, appeared in some major Hollywood films, including Out of Africa (1985) alongside Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, as well as Empire of the Sun (1987) alongside Christopher Bale and John Malkovich.

 

These are undoubtedly great movies and huge stars. But, to be honest, these films and these actors mean nothing to me compared to the cast of Carry On Constable.

 

And so I simply followed the elderly Phillips on to the plane in silence ...

 

However, whilst it's not a matter of deep regret, I do now see this as a missed opportunity to thank someone for providing many moments of cinematic joy. 

 

 

Click here for the trailer to Carry On Constable (dir. Gerald Thomas, 1960).

 

Click here for the trailer to Doctor in Clover (dir. Ralph Thomas, 1966). 

Carry on Cross Dressing

 

Top: Tony Curtis as Josephine and Jack Lemmon as Daphne in Some Like It Hot (1959)

Bottom: Kenneth Williams as Ethel and Charles Hawtrey as Agatha in Carry on Constable (1960)

 

 

I. 

 

For lovers of film and for lovers of drag, Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, is perhaps as good as it gets.

 

And indeed, there's certainly a lot to admire about it, including the performances of Curtis and Lemmon as the two jazz musicians, Joe and Jerry, who go on the run - disguised as women - after witnessing a gangland murder. They could have played the roles of Josephine and Daphne simply for laughs, but instead they invest their acting talent in creating an illusion of womanhood that is convincing as well as comic [1]. 

 

Perhaps that's why although the Curtis and Lemmon characters of Joe and Jerry are portrayed as red-blooded (heterosexual) males, whose decision to wear female clothing is a sign of their desperation rather than perversity, Some Like It Hot was produced without approval from the censor-morons who enforced the Hays Code and feared the slightest hint of queerness. 

 

Or perhaps they just found Marilyn Monroe's character of Sugar Kane too hot to handle ... [2]

 

 

II.

As good as Curtis and Lemmon are in Some Like It Hot - and as loveable as we may find Josephine and Daphne - they are not, in my view, as good (or as loveable) as Ethel and Agatha, as played by Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey in Carry On Constable (1960) ...

Directed by Gerald Thomas, Carry On Constable is the fourth in the series of Carry On films and contains many of my favourite actors, scenes, and lines of dialogue - including the scene in which Charles Hawtrey as Special Constable Timothy Gorse and Kenneth Williams as PC Stanley Benson, decide to go undercover - dressed as women - in order to catch a gang of shoplifters.

The Carry On films would, over a 20-year, 30-film span, often include scenes of drag; one thinks of Peter Butterworth, for example, as DC Slobotham disguised as female bait in Carry On Screaming (1966), or Kenneth Cope, as Cyril, pretending to be a student nurse in Carry On Matron (1972). 

But whilst heterosexual actors playing straight characters dressed as women may be mildly amusing, it lacks the camp frisson and sheer joyfulness of two homosexual actors openly playing queer characters dressed as women. And thus nothing tops the scene with Hawtrey and Williams dragged up in Carry On Constable, which readers can enjoy by clicking here.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Curtis and Lemon were helped to play Josephine and Daphne by the legendary female impersonator (and trapeze artist) Barbette, who was hired by the studio to coach them in the art of drag. 

      Much admired by Jean Cocteau, Barbette was described by the French poet and playwright as a combination of angel, flower and bird who transforms effortlessly back and forth between man and woman, revealing the performative aspect of gender. In a seminal 1926 essay, Cocteau instructed his fellow artists to learn from Barbette if they wished to understand the nature of artifice. Cocteau also commissioned a series of photographs by Man Ray of Barbette and cast her in his experimental first film Le Sang d'un Poete (1930).

 

[2] Peter Majda makes the important point that it's not just Curtis and Lemmon who are performing exaggerated forms of femininity in Some Like It Hot - that their co-star Marilyn Monroe is also "essaying another aspect of her comedic persona, which is a cis female-form of drag"; one that is, in fact, "more complicated and layered because she's a woman, playing on the expectations of femininity".

      For Monroe's hyper-feminine (and almost cartoonish) character of Sugar Kane is also carefully constructed with clothes and cosmetics and also relies upon a certain ways of walking and talking, etc. As Judith Butler once said: We are all transvestites.

      See Peter Majda's post entitled 'Performative Femininity and the Absurd: Drag and Comedy in "Some Like It Hot"' (17 April 2019), on his excellent blog A Seat in the Aisle: click here.