Stars: William Hartnell, Bob Monkhouse, Eric Barker, Dora Bryan, Bill Owen, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques

Director: Gerald Thomas

Summary: This comical caper centres on a bunch of raw recruits at an army training unit. Charles Hawtrey stars as the sergeant who is daft enough to accept a bet that his last squad of recruits will win the 'Star Squad' award.

This is the classic first CARRY ON film. Sergeant Grimshaw (William Hartnell) hopes to retire in a blaze of glory by winning the Star Squad prize with his final platoon. However, these recruits (Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Connor, and other CARRY ON regulars) turn out to be a hopeless, motley bunch.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

The first of the Carry Onmovies, 1958's Sergeantis rather different from its successors, much more a film of its time (the latter days of National Service) and rather less a bawdy picture postcard. Sergeant Grimshaw (William Hartnell long before Doctor Who) is about to retire and hopes that he can get his last platoon into shape as Champion Platoon of its intake. Unfortunately, the new recruits include the clumsy Golightly (Charles Hawtrey), the barrack-room lawyer Bailey (Kenneth Williams) and the hypochondriac Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor). Love interest is provided by Bob Monkhouse and Shirley Eaton--newlyweds separated by the call-up and reunited by her taking a job in the canteen--and by the pursuit of Horace by Dora Bryan's Nora. The film relies heavily on a mixture of slapstick and paradoxical revelations of character complexity--the obnoxious Bailey nonetheless takes the trouble to coach the incorrigibly dense Herbert (Norman Rossington); the series' later obsession with low comedy only really emerges in the scenes between Horace and the medic Captain Clark (Hattie Jacques). The platoon's eventual coming together as other than total incompetents is predictable, but likable.

On the DVD:The DVD has no frills whatever except for a widescreen picture and chapter selections; it has been cleaned up however so that we get a remarkably crisp mono picture and mono sound, which brings out the quality of the military-band score by Bruce Montgomery, who was also the writer Edmund Crispin. --Roz Kaveney

Aspect Ratio:	1.66 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Scene Access
Subtitles:	None
Year:	1958
Release Date:	August 27, 2001
Runtime:	81 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 038040
Keywords:	Comedy, General, Carry, Sergeant, Wide, Screen
Genre:	Comedy