Carry Ons that lost the plot
QUESTION What were the working titles of the Carry On films that were planned, but never made?
The Carry On series started in 1958 with Carry On Sergeant. Created and produced by Peter Rogers and directed by Gerald Thomas, the first six films were scripted by Norman hudis.
In those early days, several hudis scripts and storylines reached various stages of pre-production, including Carry On Smoking, which would have featured Kenneth Connor, Leslie Phillips and the gang as hapless firemen.
Carry On Flying was also in the pipeline, destined to do for the RAF what Carry On Sergeant had done for the Army.
hudis wrote an extensive outline for Carry On Spaceman, earmarked to unite the Carry On team with the ageing Road To . . . stars Bob hope and Bing Crosby.
In the late 1960s, when the space race was at fever pitch, Bob Monkhouse and Denis Gifford came up with an alternative Carry On Spaceman script, but that also failed to take flight.
Talbot Rothwell, who wrote all the Carry On films between 1963 and 1974, had at least one script, Carry On escaping, left unmade. Along with Carry On actor Peter Butterworth, he had been a prisoner in the Stalag Luft III camp, which inspired his script.
In 1979, following the release of the 30th film, Carry On emmannuelle, George Layton and Jonathan Lynn wrote Carry On Again Nurse. As writers and actors, they were well-known for TV’s Doctor series. This script came to naught.
In 1980, just before the death of hattie Jacques, an Australian co-production for Carry On Down Under was in talks.
In 1987, a flush of old Carry On films were released to home video, igniting talk of a new movie.
Director Gerald Thomas and stars Bernard Bresslaw, Jack Douglas, Anita harris and Terry Scott gathered at Barbara Windsor’s Buckinghamshire pub, but the promising idea of Carry On Dallas was never made.
Written by Vince Powell, it was hoped Kenneth Williams would return to play outrageous Texas oilman R. U. Screwing. Lorimar Productions, which made the TV series Dallas, were less than impressed with this spoof and threatened to sue. Instead, producer Peter Rogers turned to original writer Norman hudis, who was working in hollywood. he wrote a brand new script destined to be called Carry On Nursing or Carry On Again Nurse.
Unlike the Layton and Lynn script, this was to have been a direct sequel to Carry On Nurse, which hudis had written 30 years before. Joan Sims was to have been promoted to Matron. Kenneth Williams, as a flamboyant surgeon, and Charles hawtrey, as a hospitalised children’s author, were set to join the fun, but they both died in 1988 before it could be made.
The series finally came back to cinema screens in 1992 with Jim Dale discovering America in Carry On Columbus.
Ideas for the next film in the series have been discussed ever since. In 2003, Peter Rogers announced Carry On London about a car hire firm ferrying celebrities to a swanky awards ceremony. even after his death in 2009, the film was still on the production schedule of Carry On Films Limited. The films will carry on! Robert Ross, author of The Carry On
Companion, Aylesbury, Bucks.
QUESTION Does the word normalcy mean the same as normality?
NORMALITY and normalcy are often considered forms of the same word. however, this wasn’t originally the case. Normality, meaning the character or state of being normal, is the favoured version in British english.
This word entered the lexicon in the early 19th century, as seen in this quotation from the Morning Chronicle in 1839: ‘The blistering demon of normality is evoked from the hell of French infidelity to become the patron saint of high Church educators.’
Normalcy dates to 1857 and originally meant the mathematical condition of being at right angles.
The shift in meaning can be traced to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Warren G. harding, who in 1920 called his election campaign Return To Normalcy.
When it was pointed out the word was an error, harding, who was a former publisher and editor, claimed he couldn’t find normality in his dictionary.
Nevertheless, his campaign rejecting the activism of Theodore Roosevelt and the idealism of Woodrow Wilson was so popular among voters that he managed to win by a landslide.
In his Dictionary Of Modern english, h. W. Fowler disparagingly described normalcy as ‘a hybrid derivative of the spurious hybrid class . . . [which] seems to have nothing to recommend it’. Its usage is frowned upon in Britain, but is widely accepted in the U.S.
Ian J. Goulding, Sheffield.
QUESTION Did Charles Dickens see a ghost?
DESPITE living in an age rife with supernatural speculation and writing some of the greatest ghost stories, Charles Dickens was a sceptic.
he never claimed to have seen a ghost and believed paranormal phenomena were a result of ‘a disordered condition of the nerves or senses’.
That’s not to say he wasn’t interested in ghosts. his biographer and friend John Forster wrote: ‘Such was [Dickens’s] interest generally in things supernatural that, but for the strong restraining power of his common sense, he might have fallen into the follies of Spiritualism.’
Dickens was a founder member of the Ghost Society to investigate supernatural claims. his assessment of a manifestation recorded in the 1853 article The Spirit Business, just one of many spirit rappings and mediums he saw in the U.S., gives a good insight into how he viewed such matters.
he witnessed ‘a seer who “had a vision of stalks and leaves, a large species of fruit, somewhat resembling a pineapple,” and “a nebulous column, somewhat resembling the Milky Way,” which nothing but spirits could account for’.
Dickens dryly concluded: ‘We believe this kind of manifestation is usually followed by a severe headache next morning, attended by some degree of thirst.’
Joanne Fuller, Ludlow, Shropshire.