"Bilko joins the Carry On legion"
"Hold it baby.  How about giving us the Dance of the Two Veils?" "You mean Seven Veils" "Why bother with preliminaries"	DVD UK	UK Poster		UK Poster

 

Running Time - 90m	Colour		Certificate - A
Budget - £288,500		UK Release - September 1967
Shot - 1 May 1967 - 23 June 1967

Foreign Titles
Germany - In the Desert, No Water Flows	US - Carry On in the Legion
Hungary - Carry On with the Foreign Legion

 

The Stars
	Phil Silvers Jim Dale Peter Butterworth Charles Hawtrey Kenneth Williams Anita Harris Joan Sims Bernard Bresslaw Angela Douglas John Bluthal William Mervyn Peter Gilmore Julian Holloway Larry Taylor William Herndall Julian Orchard David Glover Vincent Ball	Sergeant Knocker Oliphant West Simpson Captain Le Pice Commandant Burger Corktip Zig Zig Abdul Abulbul Lady Jane Ponsonby Corporal Clotsky Sir Cyril Ponsonby Captain Bagshaw Ticket Collector Riff Raff Doctor Hotel Manager Ships Officer

The Crew
Producer Director Screenplay Music Cinematographer Editor	Peter Rogers Gerald Thomas Talbot Rothwell Eric Rogers Alan Hume BSc Alfred Roome

 

Synopsis Bertram Oliphant West (Jim Dale), known to his friends as Bo, is accused of conduct unbecoming on the cricket pitch, so he surrenders his claim to the hand of Lady Jane Ponsonby and does the only gentlemanly thing and joins the Foreign Legion, with his faithful manservant Simpson (Peter Butterworth) in tow. The first Legion Officer they encounter is Sergeant Knocker (Phil Silvers – best known as TV’s Sergeant Bilko), a boastful, compulsive liar who wins medals for his self-reported deeds of valour while spending his time in the back room of the Café Zigzig with its alluring proprietress Zigzig (Joan Sims).  The camp Commandant (Kenneth Williams) is a grim Teutonic leader who in a rare moment of frivolity says ‘There’s many a good fiddle played on an old dune’, which no doubt in part refers to the palm trees swaying over a stretch of sand which looks more like the Sussex Coast than the Sahara Desert.  This is well seen in the trek the Legionnaires take across the desert to reach Fort Zuassantneuf, where one by one they succumb to heat, thirst and the mirages.  They arrive just in time to defend the fort from the Riffs lead by Sheikh Abdul Abulbul (Bernard Bresslaw) who follows the teaching of the prophet Mustafa Leak.  Whenever the prophet’s name is mentioned the Riffs fall down on their knees and the Legionnaires use this to their advantage when they make their escape, taking with them Lady Jane Ponsonby who had followed Bo to the desert and been well looked after by all the conductors and ticket-collectors along the way. As is all good adventure yarns, everything turns out for the best with Bo getting his woman, Nocker getting his medals and, in a final scene back on the cricket pitch where the whole film started, Abdul getting his revenge.

 

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