In this fantastic guest blog, Dr Laura Mayne describes and discusses two of the most influential and important men in the history of Carry On - Producer Peter Rogers and scriptwriter from 1963 - 1974, Talbot Rothwell.
Laura is a Research Associate on the Arts and
Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘Transformation and
Tradition in Sixties British Cinema’ (The 1960s Project for short!) run
between the universities of York and East Anglia.
Peter Rogers was an interesting figure in British cinema. By
the 1960s he and his wife Betty Box had, between them, practically cornered the
market on low budget comedy, Box with the popular Doctor… films and Rogers with the Carry On… films, the series which
came to define British comedy and ideas about ‘Britishness’ for decades to come.
While the success of the Doctor…
series depended partly on Box’s longstanding collaboration with director Ralph
Thomas, the fortunes of the Carry On…
series very much depended on Rogers and his ongoing relationship with director (and
brother of Ralph) Gerald Thomas. Over the course of 18 years, the two men
worked with ruthless efficiency to bring each production in on time and under
budget.
When Talbot Rothwell replaced Norman Hudis as scriptwriter
for the series in 1963, it changed direction ever so slightly: whereas Hudis
had affectionately lampooned institutions like the NHS, Rothwell’s more
colourful, anarchic style veered into cinematic parodies and high camp. The
more restrained comedic styles of Carry
On Sergeant and Carry On Constable
seemed a product of the 1950s, while a film like Carry On Screaming could belong nowhere other than the ‘Swinging
Sixties’. In developing the character of the series for 1960s audiences, Rothwell’s
relationship with Rogers was very important, and Rogers often had a hand in
scriptwriting, even if he rarely took the credit. At heart, Rogers saw himself
as a writer, stating in his private correspondence that ‘I am a writer first
and a producer second’.[1]
Rogers pictured with Carry On star Joan Sims
And Rogers was quite unlike a ‘typical’ film producer in
many respects. He was completely without bombast and roundly uninterested in
adopting a movie showman persona. At a time when producers were inflating their
budgets to make their products seem more attractive to exhibitors, Rogers would
flat-out tell the press just how much (or in this case, how little) the Carry On films cost. When questioned, he
could be acerbic about the industry and how it worked, and was cynical about the
swagger and extravagance that characterised the modus operandi of some
producers. Rogers made cheap, lowbrow productions, and he was not afraid to say
so. Interviewed by The Times on
November 5, 1959, he said:
‘Throughout
the trade one hears people saying that you can’t make a film which will show a
profit for under £500,000 – which is supposed to automatically make it a super
production which will be able to break into world markets. I did not believe
this, and I think I have proved my point’.
But the Carry On
films were, above all, profitable. At
a time when producers of low-budget British fare were finding it next to
impossible to make a profit solely on the domestic cinema circuits, Rogers had
been doing exactly that for many years. He had proved his point again and again
by paring down budgets as low as they could possibly go (and the films really
were made on the proverbial shoestring) while simultaneously producing films
which made it into the box office ‘top ten’ every single year.
Rogers: ‘I’d do
anything for my actors – except pay them’
However, Rogers’ thrifty ways could add some friction to
otherwise good working relationships. According to Joan Sims, Rogers had once
said ‘I’d do anything for my actors – except pay them!’ - and it was a sentiment not too far from the
truth, as Sims reportedly earned the same amount for her first film in the
series, Carry On Nurse, made in
1958, as she did for her last, Carry On
Emmannuelle, made a whopping 20 years later.[2]
Rogers was keen to see that no one member of the cast of returning artistes got
too big for their boots; this way, stars couldn’t hold the production hostage
by demanding more money. When Charles Hawtrey asked for a salary increase
before filming Carry On Cruising, he
was unceremoniously dropped and replaced with Lance Percival, who was paid
£600.[3]
Poor Charles…
Rothwell: ‘I’m about as ambitious as
a eunuch at an orgy’
A series of letters between Rogers and Rothwell, housed in
the Gerald Thomas Collection at the British Film Institute, reveals a genial
and even affectionate relationship between the two men, but one which was (at
times) beset by the same financial tensions which affected rest of the cast and
crew in the continual effort to keep costs as low as humanly possible. In 1966
Kevin Kavanagh, Rothwell’s agent, was angling for Rothwell to take a percentage
on Carry On Cowboy, to the apparent
ire of Rogers. Two years previously Kavanagh had agreed with Rogers not to ‘up’
Rothwell’s fee for Carry On Cleo, but
felt that Rothwell should in some way participate in the profits of further Carry On films. Rogers, unfortunately,
wasn’t convinced, while Rothwell apparently regretted being caught up in these
rather distasteful negotiations, writing to Rogers:
‘Believe me, I couldn’t care less about the percentage. As
you well know, where money is concerned I’m about as ambitious as a eunuch at
an orgy. It was just the if-he-doesn’t-like-it-he-knows-what-he-can-do bit that
rankled. It’s not necessary, you know. You only have to say a simple ‘no’ to
me, as any girl will tell you. Agents, on the other hand, have to behave like
agents. ..this, invariably and unfortunately, always seems to create bad
feeling’.
Talbot Rothwell
The following year, Rothwell’s agent became concerned that
there had only been one down payment on one of Rothwell’s scripts. Still,
Rothwell’s tone in his correspondence to Rogers remained placatory:
‘…he was merely worried because I seem to have been
working almost a year now with only a down payment on one subject. We have
never seriously fallen out over finances and I certainly don’t want to start
now. You have always been very fair, and I very much appreciate that’.
Further correspondence reveals that Rothwell didn’t always
make the most auspicious financial decisions with regard to his role in the
series, however. He agreed to relinquish his percentage for Carry On Up The Khyber as compensation
for some earlier financial confusion, even though ‘knowing my luck, Khyber will probably turn out to be a
smasheroo’. As it turned out Khyber was
not just a ‘smasheroo’ but the most financial and critically successful film of
the entire series.
By 1967 Rogers was keen to diversify into other media in the
name of making the most out of the popularity of the series. With this in mind
he asked Rothwell if he might like to do a side-line in Carry On paperback novels, with Khyber as one of the first
novelizations. But Rothwell didn’t think much of the idea:
‘Regarding paperbacks, why Khyber anyway? I would have thought Carry on Doctor would have had far bigger public appeal, knowing
their hunger for things medical. As I told you before, I would certainly like
to do a book, but find I’m rather slow at writing prose’.
Despite his somewhat ruthless approach to budgeting, what
Rogers did was impressive. During a time of extreme funding scarcity and
economic uncertainty for British independent producers, Rogers made 31 films
which were profitable in the domestic market (and abroad) over a period of more
than two decades. It’s worth noting that though audiences loved them, the
critics consistently hated the Carry On
films, a fact which delighted Rogers – after all, it was what the audiences
thought that mattered. As he often stated, his team would stop making the films
when they stopped being profitable. And eventually they did, but perhaps the
less said about Emmannuelle, the
better.
Many thanks again to Laura for this fantastic guest blog. You can contact Laura via Twitter @1960sProject or follow
the project on facebook.
About the Author: Dr. Laura Mayne is a postdoctoral research associate working on the 3-year AHRC funded Transformation and Tradition in Sixties British Cinema
project led by Professor Duncan Petrie. In 2014, she completed
her doctoral thesis on the industrial impact of Film4 on British cinema
as part of the AHRC-funded Channel 4 and British Film Culture project based at Portsmouth University. She has contributed to such works as the Journal of British Cinema and Television and has written numerous reviews for the BUFVCs Viewfinder journal. Her recent published papers include Mythologies of Chance: Historicising Luck in the Film and Television Industries (2015) and Assessing Cultural Impact: Film 4, Canon Formation and Forgotten Films (2014).
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