Mr. Handy: It's a matter o' business. In 'is shoes, I'd do exactly the same thing.
Mike: If I was in 'is shoes, I'd run for me life!
— Bert Handy and Mike Weston discussing the lease for Helping Hands running out.
Carry On Regardless is a 1961 film and the fifth Carry On film in the popular British film series. It starred Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Bill Owen, Liz Fraser, and Terence Longdon.
Regardless is based around Helping Hands Ltd., an agency that sets out to perform all sorts of odd jobs, which run by Bert Handy (James) and his assistant Miss Cooling (Esma Cannon). Seven people turn up to join the agency for a new start - unhappy labour exchange clerk Sam Twist (Connor) and six labour exchange regulars, the upper-class Montgomery Infield-Hopping (Longdon), the working-class Mike Weston (Owen), the multilingual Francis Courtenay (Williams), the brassy Lily Duveen (Sims), the glamorous Delia King (Fraser), and the naïve Gabe Dimple (Hawtrey).
They are given a succession of ludicrous jobs, such as Francis taking a monkey for a walk and becoming a translator for a bilingual married couple, Lily getting drunk at a wine-tasting event, Gabe entering the boxing ring, Mr. Handy being mistaken for a famous diagnostician and Sam taking on a spy persona, all while unaware that their lease is running out, as nobody seems to be able to understand their landlord (Stanley Unwin).
Tropes Included:
- Accidental Misnaming: In a
Deleted Scene, Mrs. Riley calls Gabe Dimple "Mr. Pimple". - Affectionate Nickname: Mr. Handy and Sam call Lily "Lil".
- Alliterative Name:
- Penny Panting.
- Trevor and Trudy Trelawney.
- Dynamite Dan.
- Massive Mickey McGee.
- The script reveals that one of the old women at the Ideal Homes Exhibition is called Aunt Acid.
- All There in the Script: Some characters aren't given names in the film:
- The man trying to flirt with Lily at the wine tasting is "Wolf".
- The woman Sam disturbs on the train is actually Mata Hari.
- The old woman watching Montgomery during the Ideal Homes Exhibition is "Aunt Acid".
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: When Delia is trying on clothes in the Delling's bedroom for Mr. Delling's wife, Helen, she comes home early, much to the horror of Mr. Delling and Delia who don't want her to believe that this trope is in effect.
- The Cameo: Series regular Hattie Jacques appears briefly as Sister in the hospital. She was intended to be one of the stars but had to pull out due to an illness and her original role was cut from the script, therefore she was given the cameo role as she could still appear in the film.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Sam tries to quit smoking but is so stressed that he dashes out and buys a pack of cigarettes.
- Cool Old Lady: Miss Cooling, Mr. Handy's friendly secretary, who helps him run Helping Hands and attempts to streamline the job sorting process for him.
- Closet Shuffle:
- Delia is hidden away in the Delling's wardrobe so that Mrs. Delling won't get the idea that her husband is having an affair.
- At the Ideal Homes Exhibition, a raffish customer tells Montgomery the bachelor pad he's showing off is missing a "popsy cupboard" (a place to hide away a pretty, young woman). Montgomery tells him not to be naughty, but the customer is pretty satisfied when Delia (who was launched through a wall and into the door by an out-of-control floor polisher) stumbles out of a door unexpectedly.
- A Deleted Scene saw Gabe hired to stay in a wardrobe and listen in on Mrs. Riley's sleep talking.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: After tormenting Massive Mickey McGee, a nationally famous boxer, Gabe willingly steps into the boxing ring and runs rings around him before managing to knock him out.
- Cunning Linguist: Francis can speak sixteen languages and manages to be the only one who can understand the landlord.
- Disguised in Drag: Delia has to dress up as a workman to stop Mrs. Delling to think that her husband is having an affair.
- Driver of a Black Cab: When taking Yoki the chimp for a walk, Francis asks a disagreeable taxi driver for a lift:Francis Can you take us to-
Taxi Driver: I'll take you, but not your brother.
Francis: I beg your pardon! We've had a long walk and we're very tired.
Taxi Driver: Why don't you climb in a tree and have a kip? - Fanservice:
- Delia's only solo scene is just an excuse for the film to show Liz Fraser trying on lingerie.
- Mr. Handy's trip to the hospital shows off a whole parade of nurses in their underwear.
- Framing Device: The film is essentially a series of short vignettes held together by the idea of the central cast working for an odd jobs agency.
- Home-Early Surprise: When Mr. Delling gets Delia to model clothes for his wife, Helen, guess who comes home early? To avoid her catching her husband in the bedroom with a beautiful, partially undressed woman, Delia hides in the wardrobe and wears his clothes so she can pretend to be a workman and slip out, keeping the Delling's marriage intact.
- Intoxication Ensues: Lily gets drunk through the wine tasting because she doesn't understand that she has to sip, then spit out the wine.
- Last-Name Basis: Mr. Handy and Miss Cooling are only called by their last names by their employees to stay professional.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Played With. One of the first requests sent to Helping Hands comes from Mr. Delling, who needs a woman who wears the same size clothing as his wife, Helen, so that she can model a large number of clothes he is buying as a surprise present; Delia fits the bill and is sent to the Delling's home. Mrs. Delling comes home in the middle of the modelling session, and in an effort to avoid this trope, Delia hides in the wardrobe. When the suspicious Mrs. Delling opens the wardrobe, Delia has put on some of Mr. Delling's clothes and pretends to be a workman, before making a quick getaway, stopping any misconceptions from Mrs. Delling.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Francis is told to meet some Chinese people at a train station. He approaches a headmistress with a group of young schoolgirls, wondering why they didn't look Asian or why they spoke English. The headmistress calls the police, and they carry a kicking and protesting Francis away:Francis: You're all mad, I'm only doing my job. I'm a linguist.
Policeman: That's the first time I've heard it called that. - Mistaken for Special Guest: When a wealthy (and testy) scrap metal merchant employs Mr. Handy to hold his place in the waiting room queue at the local hospital (as rich as he is, he still insists on using the National Health Service), the staff mistake Mr. Handy for a Sir Theodore, a famous diagnostician, and invite him to take a look around.
- Omniglot: You name a language; Francis probably speaks at least a few words of it. Many of the jobs sent his way require him to speak a language other than English such as German and Chinese.
- Only Known by Their Nickname:
- Gabe's first name is "Gabriel", but he prefers "Gabe" or even "Gabby".
- Mr. Vincent is commonly referred to as "Lefty", his old boxing nickname.
- Open-Fly Gag: In the library, Sam spots an old man with his trouser buttons unfastened. He tries several times to play charades with the man, until he eventually decides to make a buzzing noise, gesture to the buttons on his waistcoat, and point as he pulled his hands down his stomach towards his groin, making the businessman check himself and then rush out of the room in embarrassment.
- Operation: Jealousy: Sam is called out on a babysitting job, but this turns out to be a ruse by the customer, Mrs. Panting, who just wants a man to make her husband jealous, thereby re-igniting their marriage. It works, although Sam ends up with a punch to the eye for his trouble.
- Out of Focus: Though this is nominally an ensemble film, we see very little of either Montgomery Infield-Hopping or Mike Weston outside of sequences involving all seven employees (such as the Ideal Homes Exhibition or the mass address mix-up), while Delia, Lily and Gabe get one solo vignette each. As such, most of the jobs are taken by either Sam or Francis.
- Poor Communication Kills: Severely inconveniences rather than kills, but Sam gets what he thinks is an assignment for a secret meeting on the Forth Bridge, so he boards a train to Edinburgh and jumps off as the train is crossing the Firth of Forth. However, the assignment was actually asking for a fourth for a game of Bridge.
- Polly Wants a Microphone: Mike arrives at an aviary, thinking it's the strip club he's going to be a bouncer for. When he asks the bird woman where the girls were, the woman replies that no one strips in here, cueing Captain Hook (the parrot in the cage nearby) to say, "Only the old woman when she goes to bed", as the bird woman barks at it to be quiet.
- Product Placement: The toys featured in Francis' section of the Ideal Homes Exhibition were supplied by Tri-ang and Pedigree, who ran an advertising campaign for the film in return with the slogan "Carry on Kids... Have fun with Tri-ang and Pedigree toys, then have fun seeing Carry On Regardless".
- Punny Name: Aunt Acid (a play on "antacid") is the name given for Lucy Griffiths' character in the script.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Sam, Francis, Lily, Delia, Gabe, Mike, and Montgomery - seven eager people looking for interesting jobs and will try any task Helping Hands gives to them, no matter how unsuitable they may be.
- Serial Spouse: Mr. Paul, the famous actor that Lily visits, claims to have just ended his fifth marriage and suggests she could be his number six. Naturally, she's having none of it and storms off.
- Shout-Out: Sam taking the train to the Fourth Bridge parodies a sequence in The 39 Steps (1935). Sam even mentions the film to Miss Cooling when she tells him of the job.
- Silly Simian: Francis takes Yoki the chimp for a walk and struggles to be taken seriously by passersby.
- Tagline: "Funniest Carry On ever!".
- Talking in Your Sleep: A Deleted Scene was about Mrs. Riley, a woman who hired Gabe to listen in on her sleep talking and tell her everything that she said.
- Title Drop: Done in a somewhat contrived way in the film's final scene. When the Helping Hands crew end up half-demolishing the house their landlord has asked them to clean, he arrives and, as translated by Francis, tells them he is planning to demolish it anyway to make way for a block of flats. So, there's only one thing for them to do: carry on, regardless.
- The Unintelligible: The agency's landlord is played by "Professor" Stanley Unwin, who speaks entirely in his made-up language of "Unwinese" (known in the film as "Gobbledygook"). The language itself involves assorted creative twists on English words, but he speaks so quickly that only a careful listener will be able to follow him. In-Universe, Francis is the only one who can understand him, but he is away the first and second times the landlord tries to explain to Mr. Handy that he has had a better offer for their premises, and they must leave by the end of the month.
- Unusual Euphemism: When Francis makes a school headmistress believe he is after her schoolgirls, he tries to explain that he thought they were supposed to be Chinese (his assignment from Helping Hands got mixed up with Sam's) and that he was only doing his job as a linguist. The policeman taking him away doesn't understand and remarks it's the first time he's heard it called that, believing "linguist" to mean something dirty.
