Trivia / Carry On Spying

• Acting for Two: John Bluthal was both the head waiter and the voice of Dr. Crow (Crow's actress Judith Furse was dubbed with a male voice to add to Crow's Ambiguous Gender).
• Blooper:
  • Despite Agent Simpkins accidentally smashing the glass in the Chief's door, the glass is still visibly intact.
  • The cherry sticks in the cocktails at Café Mozart change positions between shots.
  • The fez lying in the middle of the fun house's doorway disappears between shots.
  • One of the guards' hands is still moving after he is shot.
  • During the escape from STENCH HQ, Agent Simpkins drops a spool of tape, but after a cutaway, all of the tape is once more in his hands.
  • The way the cylinder in the STENCH HQ is cut changes between shots.
  • Agent Bind's tripped trousers and jacket repair themselves during the agents' escape from STENCH HQ.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Belgium: Agent Secret 0.0.0.H! against Dr. Crow.
  • Europe: Agent O.O.Oh!.
  • Hungary: Carry On Espionage/Keep Spying!.
  • South America: Watch out for the Spies.
• Costume Backlash: Jim Dale didn't like the costume worn by Carstairs when he disguises himself as a French prostitute. He said in an interview:
  I liked all the roles except the pick-up girl. The padding I didn't mind, but wearing those high-heeled shoes, my feet were killing me!
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Some books incorrectly claim that Cyril Chamberlain appeared in this film as a bit part.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Norman Hudis is now embarrassed by his unused treatment, calling it "an abominably inept screenplay shrieking of a tired mind, running on empty, limping along on autopilot".
  • Kenneth Williams complained about the script in his diaries:
    The script of Carry On Spying is so bad that I'm really beginning to wonder. I've changed one or two things but the witless vacuity of it all remains.
• The Danza: Charles Hawtrey as Charlie Bind.
• Deleted Scene: Most of Gloria Best's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
• DVD Commentary: With Carry On historian Robert Ross talking to Bernard Cribbins (Agent Harold Crump) and Dilys Laye (Lila).
• Executive Veto: The film suffered from this, as do many Carry On films that are parodies of work:
  • Charlie Bind was supposed to be named "James Bind, 006 and a half", but the producer for the James Bond movies demanded that it must be changed and was finally made "double oh ooh" (in the film, he explains that the recruitment officer took one look at him and muttered, "Oh-oh... ohhh").
  • The movie poster was edited slightly because film studios complained that they looked too much like From Russia with Love.
• Fake Nationality: The Polish John Bluthal as the Viennese head waiter.
• Hostility on the Set: Charles Hawtrey collapsed from drinking too much during the filming of the conveyor belt scene. When Barbara Windsor tried to help him, he had a go at her for being "so bloody nice" all the time.
• On-Set Injury: Kenneth Williams was injured when he fell from a piece of angle iron in the roof.
• Promoted Fangirl: Barbara Windsor was a fan of the previous Carry On movies before being cast in this one and was a fan of Kenneth Williams in particular.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • Bernard Cribbins offended Gerald Thomas on set when he lost his temper at the crew when some blanks were fired too close to him, and he wasn't brought back for another Carry On for another 28 years until Carry On Columbus.
  • Barbara Windsor also offended Thomas when she made a comment about how it was boring for him to be talking about cars on a break from filming and wouldn't return for another three years until Carry On Doctor.
• Technology Marches On: A Sega slot machine is briefly seen in Hakim's Fun House.
• Throw It In!: Dilys Laye's "Stop messin' about" line was ad-libbed.
• Troubled Production: The film went £11,000 over budget due to several accidents including Charles Hawtrey collapsing on-set, Kenneth Williams being injured by a fall from the roof, and the need to replace an iron girder that had split. All these incidents held up production meaning the actors had to be paid more.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the first treatment by Norman Hudis, the plot involved secret agents getting involved with the atomic bomb. Peter Rogers, however, wasn't happy with the script. He'd been hoping for a James Bond parody, but what he got had one scene with the spies disguised as CND activists joining a peace rally.
  • Hudis then revised his treatment, with Kenneth Connor as secret agent Bold, Hattie Jacques as Dauntless (who is briefly Brainwashed and Crazy), Joan Sims as Valliant, Charles Hawtrey as a spy with a cover as a jazz pianist, and Sid James as the head of the spies, all five of them working in Operation Smith, intending to capture Smith, who alongside his accomplice, Stamp, had stolen a top-secret file from the Department of Obsolete Missiles.
  • Talbot Rothwell was brought in to write a new script with the title Come Spy With Me; The basic script was the same, but Kenneth Williams was now Philip Bull, the leader, with the spy ring now consisting of James as Lucky Dexter, Sims as Janie May, Connor as Art Accleston, Hawtrey as Fingers Allen, and Esma Cannon as the administrator Amelia Barley. However, James, Connor, and Sims were all unavailable for the film, while Cannon had retired from acting by this point.
  • Barbara Windsor was brought in as a replacement for Liz Fraser after she had been dropped from the films prior to Carry On Jack.
  • The film was intended to be shot in colour but Peter Rogers was offered some excess monochrome film stock at a significantly reduced rate, which he gladly accepted to keep the budget down. As a result, some scenes were then rewritten to pay homage to the film noir genre of the past.
• Working Title: Come Spy With Me.

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