Carry On Up The Jungle (1970)

Or “Stop Beating About The Bush”, or “Show Me Your Water Hole and I’ll Show You Mine”.

It is 1900 and a safari expedition through the African jungle in search of the legendary Oozulum bird finds more than expected.

Lady Evelyn Bagley (Joan Sims) is searching for her long lost husband, Walter, and baby son, Cecil, and finds them both – but Walter (Charles Hawtrey) is now living the life of luxury with the 400 Amazons of the LubiDubi tribe as Chief Tonka, King of Lovers, Master of Women and Father of Countless, while their son has grown up into a poor man’s Tarzan, called Ugg (Terry Scott).

Mr Boozie (Sidney James) is the ultimate bumbling white hunter, tripping over the jungle foliage, shooting various slaves instead of lions, sneaking off for a quick nip of whisky at any time and incorporating coy sexual references to Lady Evelyn’s maid, June Bung (Jacki Piper) and highly unsubtle sight gags with his rifle to a knowing Lady Evelyn.

Also along for this wonderfully hilarious journey is timid and lazy servant and tracker, Upsidasi (a blacked-up Bernard Bresslaw).

The comic catalyst is the beautifully incompetent Terry Scott as Ugg, swinging through the air with the greatest of ill-at-ease.

A clumsy figure of baby-faced ignorance, Ugg mumbles and murmurs at all and sundry, delighting in his sexual awakening opposite June and almost being seduced by his own mother, the over-amorous, Lady Evelyn.

The gang end up on the menu of the fierce, man-eating Nosha tribe, are rescued by the statuesque all-women LubiDubi tribe and get carried off to Afrodisia, a world of female rule presided over by the delectable Leda (Valerie Leon, pictured above).

During production, the working title of the 19th Carry On film was Carry On Jungle Boy.

Mr Bill Boozie
Sidney James
Professor Inigo Tinkle
Frankie Howerd
Chief Tonka the Great (Walter Bagley)
Charles Hawtrey
Lady Evelyn Bagley
Joan Sims
Ugg (Jungle Boy)
Terry Scott
Lord Claude Chumley
Kenneth Connor
Upsidasi
Bernard Bresslaw
Miss June Bung
Jacki Piper
Leda
Valerie Leon

Director
Gerald Thomas