Carry
On At Your Convenience Trivia
- Due to increasingly vocal comments made by the censors
and critics concerning Sid's chasing after young girls, an effort was made
to phase out this persona, and this comes to the fore in Convenience, he has
his pipe and slippers. This coincided with his successful TV series
Bless This House.
- Originally called Carry On Comrade suggesting a hard
line in the plot, it was renamed Convenience and toned down.
- Convenience has no meaning outside of the UK, and so
was renamed Carry On Round The Bend for most international screenings.
- Originally conceived with the overtly communist title
of Carry On Comrade in reflection of the negative treatment of the union and
union bosses, the film was announced as the 21st Carry On title at the time
of Carry On Loving’s release. However, with the media interest intensifying
around the special, ‘coming of age’, production, Peter Rogers and Gerald
Thomas decided to give the 21st film honour to a more lavish production;
namely Carry On Henry. Carry On Comrade was subsequently pushed back to the
Spring 1971 filming slot. With Carry On Henry in the can the contract for
scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell was rushed through at Pinewood Studios and came
under discussion in December 1970. By this stage, the new film had been
re-titled Carry On Working. That title was ultimately retained in the film’s
closing sequence, a dialogue scene that didn’t appear in Talbot Rothwell’s
final draft of the script. To add even further confusion, the word
‘convenience’ wasn’t used for lavatories in America or Australia, so the
film was re-labelled Carry On Round The Bend for release in those countries.
- In Britain, however, the ‘convenience’ gag was seized
upon for the maximum of publicity. A memo detailing promotional tie-ins
before the London trade show in December 1971 details that “in conjunction
with Wolfe publishing we have secured a quantity of display units to be
placed in stores and flyers throughout the UK which will have a cross
reference to the ‘Good Loo Guide’.” Doulton & Co Limited were more than
happy to help with the supplying of fine sanitary potteries for the filming.
Actor Hugh Futcher, who had been a a regular Carry Oner since playing the
bed of nails native in Carry On Spying (1964) remembered that: “we had
everything that goes into a bathroom suddenly everywhere on set!”
- Carry On great Terry Scott filmed a pivotal boardroom
debate scene as union big wig Mr Allcock. Paid the princely sum of £500 for
his one day’s work on 20th April 1971, directly Gerald Thomas reluctantly
had to cut the entire scene. Writing a personal note to Terry on 10th June
1971 he explained that: “this is in no way any reflection on you or your
performance but the film finished 50 minutes over length and we felt rather
than cut your sequence down so that you were only on the screen for a flash
it would be kinder to remove the entire scene as really it had no effect one
way or the other on the story, such as it is.” Terry was due to receive
ninth star billing for his aborted supporting turn.
- The bean feast down in Brighton was filmed towards
the end of the shooting schedule. The cast and crew convened at Pinewood
Studios on Monday 3rd May and were transported to the Sussex resort by
coach. It was suggested in the pre-production meeting that the unit check
into their hotel, the Royal Albion, directly opposite the Palace Pier, and
that filming would commence at 1.30 pm that same day. All Brighton-based
location footage was completed by the end of Wednesday 6th May and the unit
returned to Pinewood. The “return journey from Brighton” material was filmed
the following day in Iver Heath and other local roads around the studios.
- Despite Carry On At Your Convenience, in retrospect,
being considered one of the true classics of the series, it was met with
muted laughter on its first release. The clear empathy with capitalism and
misjudged treatment of unions as either corrupt or stupid clearly didn’t
tally with the opinions of the ‘beer and chips’ population that made up much
of the most loyal fan base for the Carry Ons. Indeed, while the economic
budget and great popularity of the films usually saw a profit margin after
three days on the home market, Carry On At Your Convenience had only broken
even in 1976, following overseas distribution and the sale of television
rights.
