Or when two dying franchises collide. The juxtaposition of Britain’s favourite comedy institution and Europe’s most famous soft porn franchise was always going to signal the death knell for both series and so it came to pass (although the Carry On title added extra N in the name to avoid copyright problems). Suzanne Danielle slips into the title character’s body hugging outfits and waltzes through a witless scenario in which her character’s indiscretions lead to a national scandal (the only one immune to her charms is her diplomat husband, Kenneth Williams in full on camp, shrieking mode).
While most Carry Ons were shot in 6 weeks, Emmannuelle was made in just over a month and badness abounds at every level. A Concorde nose cone gag is risible. A snazzy ‘70s theme song (Love Crazy) is terrible. But worst of all is the mistaken belief that T&A is, of its own accord, funny and that the subtle use of double entendre, sly innuendo and wit has long fallen by the wayside. The regular Carry Oners tried their best — Peter Butterworth has fun as a dithering old fart, Joan Sims does her best po-faced battle-axe until she finds sexual enlightenment and this is a rare Carry On where jack Douglas doesn’t do that shake and quiver thing — but it was too little too late. It’s almost impossible to think that over the pond, Woody Allen had just made Annie Hall and we were subjected to this — right down there with Carry On England vying for the worse of the series.