Follow That Camel
For the first week of filming Jim Dale and Peter Butterworth were not speaking to one another, even though they had the majority of scenes together. At the start of shooting, Kenneth Williams told Peter Butterworth that Jim Dale 'hated his guts' and then told Dale the same thing about Butterworth. Eventually Dale asked Butterworth on set, if Williams had said anything to him and they discovered what had happened, whilst Williams stood nearby laughing at them.,When Simpson enters the tent in disguise to rescue West and Nocker, he is bashed on the head, wrapped in a carpet and West says "Get his clothes". With no intervening action or dialogue, he is then seen crawling out of the tent in uniform. He has had no time to recover, nor has it been established that the other two have discovered their mistake.,Sgt. Nocker: Hold it baby. How about giving us the Dance of the Two Veils?
Corktip: You mean seven veils.
Sgt. Nocker: Why bother with preliminaries?,Edited into Carry on Laughing: Episode #1.6 (1981),A surprisingly funny instalment of the CARRY ON franchise, given this film's poor reputation amongst fans. A lot of that ill feeling stems from the presence of Phil Silvers (SGT. BILKO) in the cast, replacing Sid James; Silvers is hardly a perfect fit here, but I found that come the end he had acquitted himself well with the material.

And the story is very enjoyable. This is a broad spoof of the Foreign Legion movie, with an upper class toff (Jim Dale, on fine form) and his manservant (Peter Butterworth, excelling in one of his larger roles) drafted into the Legion to do battle against Bernard Bresslaw (excellent) and his nefarious Arabs.

The cast give some very good performances in this one, particularly Kenneth Williams playing a (bizarrely) German officer. Inevitably the gags come thick and fast, and there's a fair share of hits among them too, including some great sight gags. What I noticed in particular, and it may be the nature of the spoof, is that CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMEL has much more in common with the 1950s-era CARRY ON flicks than the crude 1970s ones, and that's perhaps a reason I enjoyed it so much.,