Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
Gerald Thomas' Carry on Spying (1964) was one of the earliest big-screen satires of the
James Bond movies, appearing in the same year as
Goldfinger. Otherwise, it isn't significantly better than the rest of the
Carry On series, except in two small but important respects. First, there are moments in the movie where Thomas gets into some very clever parodies of the thriller genre: In the credit sequence, as the enemy agent disguised as a milkman enters the top secret laboratory, there's a wonderful extended tracking shot as the camera follows him down the corridors that is as good as the conventions of the standard spy film; and in the first scene on the streets of Vienna at night, we suddenly hear zither music and see an old bearded man wandering down the street selling his wares, as Bernard Cribbens' fingers pop out through a manhole cover and lift it off. That brings us to the other element that distinguishes this from the other
Carry On movies, the presence of Bernard Cribbens. He's funny just sitting there reacting with the tiniest flick of an eye-lid to Kenneth Williams' antics, and his every expression is worth taking in. Otherwise, there are the usual
Carry On gags, tailored for the espionage subject matter, most of them as old as the hoariest vaudeville and music hall routines, and a few nods to the
Bond films. Thanks to its being a
James Bond parody, there are also probably a few more jokes about
Barbara Windsor's anatomy than is typical in a movie this early in the series, but otherwise there's nothing different here from the other early '60s titles in the
Carry On movies. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide