Monday, April 18, 2022

Carry on Up the Jungle (1970)

The Carry On team send up Tarzan films superbly.

Professor Tinkle (Frankie Howerd) is in Africa hunting for rare birds (no, the feathered kind!) He is being guided by big game hunter Boosey (Sid James) and accompanied by Lady Bagley (Joan Sims) who is still looking for her long lost son who disappeared in Africa many years ago. Her son is in fact now Ugh (Terry Scott) who has grown up in the jungle, swinging between the trees in vines like Tarzan. Unfortunately unlike Tarzan, Ugh has not learnt how to not crash in anything...

Tinkle's party faces wild animals, cannibal tribes and finally are captured by Amazons who require the men for mating. The King of the tribe, Tonka (Charles Hawtrey) turns out to be Lady Bagley's long lost, and presumed eaten, husband! Meanwhile, Ugh has fallen in love with Lady Bagley's maid June (Jacki Piper)...

It is all a hilarious and crude mess, with many wonderfully dreadful puns and sexual innuendo. Quite what the blacked up Bernard Bresslaw was saying to the "natives" is unknown, and they didn't have any idea either!