Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Five hundred years later, Carry On Columbus was released in theaters. Oddly enough, there’s actually more evidence that the former event took place than the latter. Reasonable people can argue Columbus’s place in history. There is no reasonable argument for Carry On Columbus, and it has no place in history. Except here.
The Carry On comedies are a British institution – and like the Royal Family, a British institution that has long since outlived its usefulness. Fifty years ago, the first movie in the series, Carry On Sergeant, delighted audiences in the U.K. At least, I must assume it delighted them, as a whopping 30 more Carry On comedies would follow. Some favor Carry On Cleo and Carry On Up the Khyber. Others go to bat for Carry On Screaming or Carry On Camping. Most agree that the series began to lose some steam as it entered the 1970s. Many of the original cast members departed after 1974’s Carry On Dick. Surely Monty Python had made what Wikipedia calls the Carry On films’ “energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres,” obsolete.
After the release of Carry On Emmanuelle in 1978, fourteen years passed during which moviegoers could reasonably assume they had seen the end of this venerable tradition. Yet Carry On carried on. In 1992, in honor of the Columbus quincentennial, the 31st and almost assuredly worst of the Carry On films was excreted into theaters. What with most of the original cast members being dead or retired, a younger generation of British comedic talent was recruited to debase themselves, including Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle and Julian Clary. Carry On veteran Jim Dale returns as Chris Columbus, a mapmaker with a plan to cross the gloomy sea, establish a new route to the Indies, and make off with all of their gold. He cuts a deal with the King and Queen of Spain, and they apparently supply him with some seaworthy vessels, although there’s never any attempt made to convince us that Columbus and his crew are actually at sea. I’m fairly certain I participated in school plays with higher budgets than Carry On Columbus.
In the annals (or, if I’m a Carry On character, the anals) of really boring and stupid British historical seafaring comedy, Carry On Columbus ranks well below Yellowbeard or even the soporific Erik the Viking. It’s stunning to think it was actually made in the ‘90s; you would think medical science had brought us no advances in humor since 1958. If you enjoy old-school sniggering innuendo (“Come up my end!”) or jokes that would have slayed your fifth grade classmates (“We just had a leak in the hold!” “Did you? Well, next time go over the side.”), you may find my judgment too harsh. Things pick up ever so slightly when Columbus and company arrive in the New World, to find natives who speak with Brooklyn accents. Their king is played by Larry Miller, who gave me a chuckle or one. I have to say, though, that any chance I might have ever been curious enough to check out the back catalogue of Carry On movies is now greatly diminished.
Previously on Unwatchable:
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
63. Alone in the Dark
64. Angels’ Brigade
65. Meet the Browns
