Bruce Montgomery

	Best Film	Carry On Nurse
	Films	6 - Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless, Cruising

The first Carry On music maestro was Bruce Montgomery, born 2nd October 1921 in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire, he went on to be a scholarly Oxford type who wrote detective stories

under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin and whose drinking habits were legendary. He was at his best with the lively march music in Sergeant played by the band of the Coldstream Guards and the wonderfully aggressive theme which accompanies Hattie Jacques' Matron as she sweeps along the corridors in Nurse.

Music has always played an important role in the Carry Ons adding another strand to the visual and verbal humour. The musical jokes range from the corny to the classical with strains of Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be to Tchiakovsky's Letter Song.

Mainly due to alcohol addiction and related illnesses he couldn't finish the score for Carry On Cruising and so Eric Rogers took over, but Montgomery still kept the credit for the score and Rogers became the mainstay for most of the remaining films.

Under the pseudonym Edmund Cripsin he wrote nine book, and apparently they were very good. They are The Case of the Gilded Fly, The Moving Toyshop, Buried for Pleasure, Holy Disorders, Swan Song, The Long Divorce, Frequent Hearses, Love Lies Bleeding , The Glimpses of the Moon, Beware of the Trains and Fen Country.

He died on September 15, 1978 (age 56) in West Hampstead, London, England of a Heart Attack.