RANKING: one of the best of the modern-dress ones. The humour is a bit more smutty than in some but it's not dirty - it's still funny.

TYPICAL: Like all their non-historical films since CAMPING, they're all the exact same story but with different names. By 1972 when they made this, they'd got the recipe just right, it just clicks. Whilst hardly the height of sophisticated wit, every single line of the script seems to be a silly smutty double entendre. It's almost clever! One of the running gags is a local drink which makes you see the young ladies in their underwear - it's that sort of humour so if If you like this type of thing, this will be perfect for you. Unlike the last few films they did, this one's genuinely funny because it's silly and smutty rather than rude and offensive.

SEXY LADIES: The other essential of a Carry On film is saucy, sexy ladies and in this one we have them in abundance. The man (definitely a man) who did the casting must have particularly enjoyed that job. What's really surprising is how weirdly charming and innocent the gratuitous nudity is! Somewhere on set someone must have been told to ring a bell every five minutes signifying that whichever young lady was in frame at that moment they had to get their boobs out. The worthy winner of this 'adult' musical chairs game is usually Barbara Windsor. Her frequent toplessness is however never seedy and never vulgar, it's always done for laughs which makes her so endearing.

Publican Vic Flange is looking forward to a holiday in the Spanish resort of Elsbels with customer Sadie Tomkins; that is until another customer starts talking about it in front of Mrs. Flange... when she insists on going too it is inevitable Vic won't be getting the holiday he'd hoped for. We are introduced to the other holidaymakers as they board the coach to the airport; they include Evelyn Blunt and her henpecked husband Stanley, tour leader Stuart Farquhar, a group of monks and dipsomaniac Eustace Tuttle. When they get to Spain it becomes apparent that their brand new resort hotel is so new they haven't finished building it nor is it fully staffed. The rooms aren't good either with shared bathrooms and wardrobes with no backs which enabled people to see into the next room. Inevitably everybody complains and things don't improve the next day when the 'glorious sunshine' turns into pouring rain.

Watching this I have to wonder whether it was sponsored by the English Tourist board as it doesn't make an overseas holiday seem an attractive proposition! Being fairly late in the Carry On series there is inevitably plenty of less than subtle innuendo and some mild nudity (a glimpse of Barbara Windsor's bare backside); thankfully though it isn't too bad and there are plenty of laughs to be had from the silliness of the situations. It was great seeing most of the core Carry On team putting in enjoyable performances. I was not at all surprised to learn that none of it was filmed overseas; as the holiday makers sunbathe the lighting is that of a grey English day and we don't even see the sea... odd given that they are meant to be on the beach; perhaps the budget didn't stretch to a visit to Southend! Overall I'd say this isn't a bad Carry On film but it is far from a classic.

The Carry On team tackle that other British staple of the 1970s, the package holiday to the Med for some sun, sea, and a bit of 'how's your father?'; the result is another seriously silly caper full of low-brow humour and cheap titillation that is more fun than doing a drunken flamenco on a tapas bar table. Olé!

Kenneth Williams plays travel guide Stuart Farquhar (Stupid what?), who leads a troupe of happy-go-lucky holidaymakers to the resort of Elsbels. With Sid James, Charles Hawtree, Joan Sims, Babs Windsor, Kenneth Connor, and Bernard Besslaw amongst the travellers, hilarity is most definitely on the agenda, especially since the hotel they are booked into is not only seriously understaffed, but also isn't quite finished being built.

Having left their inhibitions back in England, the Gang proceed to drink, fight and flirt their way through the week, getting in trouble with the local police, partaking of a suspicious looking aphrodisiac purchased on an excursion, and partying while the hotel collapses, all of which allows for plenty of smutty innuendo, daft slapstick, and a spot of welcome T&A from Carry On regular Windsor, babes Carol Hawkins and Sally Geeson, and total hottie Gail Grainger as Williams' sexy assistant Miss Plunkett.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.