TheLittleSongbird Carry on Henry is an entertaining enough entry in the comedy franchise, but I don't think it is as good as Carry on Cleo, Carry on Screaming or Carry On Up the Khyber. It is true that Talbot Rothwell's script isn't the sharpest one on the block, though there are some great one liners("it's all cock and no pea") and some priceless scenes, especially the ones with Barbara Windsor. Sid James is suitably merry as the monarch of the title, and Kenneth Williams is hilarious as always. Barbara Windsor looked lovely and also gives a very funny performance. The direction and photography have little fault, perhaps a little leisurely with the former, likewise with the scenery and costumes which were both very nice. However while there is evidence of making the jokes funny, the plot isn't as impressive, it had a tendency to become slow and unfocused. Still it is very enjoyable, so I will give it a 7/10. Bethany Cox

sexy_pisces_gal From the writers of Carry On comes this fantastic and comical portrayal of King Henry VIII (Sid James) and his French Queen Marie (Joan Sims). Henry VIII of Great Britain has just married the French princess Marie and is eager to consummate the marriage- until he finds she has a taste for the revolting garlic. Rather then give it up, the Queen holds the garlic close and Henry orders the marriage annulled, prompting his close ministers Cromwell (Kenneth Williams) and Wolsey (Terry Scott) to battle it out together. But when it revealed the Queen is pregnant, a hilarious battle of wit and trust degenerates into lust and blackmail. And when a pretty lady (Barbara Windsor) enters Henrys court he makes up his mind to marry her, with hilarious consequences. Although skimpy on facts this comedy is definitely one of the top three from the legendary Carry On crew, which will have you rolling in laughter for years.

Erich-13 An outstanding spoof of historical costume dramas, "Carry On Henry" is one of the best, if not THE best, of the Carry On series. Sid James is in great form as the frustrated King Henry VIII, with fine support from Kenneth Williams & Terry Scott as the schemers Cromwell & Wolsey, Joan Sims as the buxom, garlic-addicted queen, Charles Hawtrey as her unlikely paramour, and Barbara Windsor as the giggly maiden pursued by the king. The performers are all at their best, the script is packed with clever gags, and the production values could compete with any "serious" period piece of the time. Highly recommended to both fans and newcomers to the series.

alice liddell For most spoofs, the holy grail is to make so ridiculous the subject of attack that it will be impossible to take it seriously again. AIRPLANE! achieved this with the AIRPORT series, admittedly an easy target. CARRY ON HENRY may not have had quite the same effect - such is the unshakeable British obsession with the past, one of the film's main targets - but it's always nice to see that someone else found A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and THE LION IN WINTER to be pompous tripe as well.HENRY, like CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, is an example of a modest franchise miraculously finding an appropriate subject and creating a work of art. It may lack the jawdropping Bunuellian genius of KHYBER, but it has its own juicy pleasures. The jokes are franker than were usual at this point, but clever rather than crude, and funny when they were crude.This is also the last time the cast would be as brilliant as this - a well-oiled machine perfectly in control of the material. Kenneth Williams is aptly, hilariously Machiavellian; Charles Hawtrey is endearingly inappropriate as the brave knight and lover who undergoes all sorts of horrible tortures for his Queen - the heterosexual potency of these obviously gay stars are an uproarious counterpoint to the macho King's unsuccessful promiscuity. Joan Sims is glorious as ever as the ample, lascivious, French, garlic-obsessed Queen. But it is the godlike Sid James who rightly walks away with the film, cinema's best ever King Henry. The merging of his usual persona - the chuckling lecher who is repeatedly thwarted in his amorous endeavours (itself a remarkable comment of tyranny throughout the ages), married to a sex-mad woman he can't abide - with the portrayal of an historical icon creates satire of great depth.Whereas the aforementined, Oscar-garlanded pageants are rigidly respectful of English history, HENRY is breezily sceptical. Rather than search for continuity with the past, or examine various notions of Englishness, HENRY is very modern in its rejection of a certain kind of history, the meticulous reconstruction of a mythic past that can teach us about the present. HENRY knows that the past can only be viewed through the prism of the present, that history is a fluid, ever vanishing, entity, always reinterpreted to each generation's needs. The film quite clearly sets out its stall of bogusnes - it is based on recently discovered documents by William Cobbler - only to show how unreliable our grasp of history is; how it's always told in somebody's vested interests, at the expense of someone else.The film therefore prefigures the awesome Monty Python deconstructions of the 70s, with jokes about the Labour government, and with King's wenches who demand payment before favours, and whose fathers complain about taxation. The reduction here of English history to an aristorcratic bedroom farce is a more profound insight than any 'serious' epic has ever managed.