Cowboys and Khasis

Abstract

During the 1960s and into the 1970s, the Carry On scripts alternated between genre parody and realist tropes. Whilst they tackled Britain’s James Bond and Hammer Films with skill, or commented upon life in a toilet factory, they turned their attention to creating two genre parodies that moved them away, yet defiantly contained them within, ideas of Britishness. The Western, that quintessential American genre, was ripe for parody, almost ten years before Blazing Saddles (1974). Likewise, Carry On Up the Khyber parodied the stiff upper lips of a nation overcoming a post-Suez Crisis malaise. Gerrard’s in-depth analysis of both of these films reveals just how important the genre parodies are to the whole Carry On canon.