Carry On Matron

The Bun and Oven Wards are open at Finisham Maternity Hospital. The 23rd film in the Carry On series and the fourth (and last) of the medical themed adventures. Sid Carter (Sid James) leads a gang of thieves who plan to break into Finisham Hospital and steal a load of contraceptive pills to sell abroad. But where are they kept? Sid decides to send his son Cyril (Kenneth Cope) in undercover disguised as a nurse... They probably seem like cheap gags now, but much mirth is mined from the scenarios set up by a man undercover as a female nurse. Cue him having to share a room with a foxy babe (Babs Windsor), having to fight off the attentions of the randy Doctor Prodd (a brilliant film stealing Terry Scott) and him getting involved with medical issues he has no idea about (yikes this is a maternity hospital!). Elsewhere Joan Simms portrays a human eating machine that is three weeks over due, while her poor railway worker husband (Kenneth Connor great as always) goes insane in the waiting room. Kenneth Williams is the hypochondriac hospital manager and the wonderful Hattie Jacques gets great scenes in a film thats title and script acknowledges her work in the medical Carry On films. Briskly paced by the ever reliable Gerald Thomas, "Matron" is one of the more likable and funny Carry On entries of the 70s. 7.5/10

You can tell that the producers were beginning to run out of ideas for these as this hybrid of "Carry on Nurse" (1959) and "Carry on Doctor" (1967) hits the screen. This time Sid James isn't a patient. He is "Carter", audaciously planning to rob the "Finisham" hospital of it's supply of valuable drugs. To facilitate this crime, he decides that his son "Cyril" (Kenneth Cope) should don the garb of a nurse an impersonate one until he can get the lay of the land for their burglary. Meantime, "Dr. Prodd'' (Terry Scott) has the job the philandering bumbler, Hattie Jacques is this time a less ruthless matron and Joan Sims takes the cake as the eternally pregnant "Mrs. Tiday" who is quite happy to eat the place out of house and home while her poor railwayman husband (Kenneth Connor) grows steadily older and more frustrated in the waiting room. At times, there are still traces of the old style of slapstick humour; the writing is quite funny now and again and there is plenty of "how's your father" - real or imaginary for us to chortle at. It's not the best, nor anywhere near - but it's got plenty going on before an ending that did actually smack of sequel coming!!