This is a mixed-up collection of Carry On delights with a totally meaningless title for a totally plotless array of brief comic situations and familiar character players.
As the title suggests, this film is devoid of any real thematic focus, and wanders aimlessly but memorably through myriad scenarios in which anything can happen.
Bert Handy (Sid James) runs the Helping Hands Odd Job Agency, and he’s recruiting new staff. But the people he gets from the Employment Exchange are inexperienced, and end up confused and bewildered as they mix up their respective tasks, as do the people they are supposed to help.
Kenneth Connor bumbles around nervously as women make advances (a particularly lush Fenella Fielding), Kenneth Williams stomps through the working-class masses with his nose in the air, Joan Sims has the frumpy female gags thrown at her as her sexy figure and Charles Hawtrey minces about in the background with a constant smile and a wickedly sparkling glint in his eye.
The element of stability in the film is in the office sequences where boss Sid James and flustered assistant Esma Cannon dish out the various oddball assignments and try and tie the whole into a seamless comedy of community and innuendo. Hugely welcome performers wander through the proceedings as the seven ‘Helping Hands’ eagerly try and complete their assignments.
All is fine and dandy as the problems are resolved and the job of cleaning one of Stanley Unwin’s properties creates a whiz-bang, dust-covered, gloriously messy climax which ends the only way it can – Kenneth W translating Unwin’s last words as “carry on regardless”.
Bert Handy
Sid James
Sam Twist
Kenneth Connor
Francis Courtenay
Kenneth Williams
Gabriel ‘Gabi’ Dimple
Charles Hawtrey
Lily Duveen
Joan Sims
Delia King
Liz Fraser
Mike Weston
Bill Owen
Penny Panting
Fenella Fielding
Montgomery Infield-Hopping
Terence Longdon
Mata Hari
Betty Marsden
Wolf
Nicholas Parsons
Miss Cooling
Esma Cannon
Landlord
Stanley Unwin
Lefty
Freddie Mills
Dynamite Dan
Joe Robinson
Helen Delling
Carole Shelley
Mr Panting
Ed Devereaux
Director
Gerald Thomas
