Can anyone tell me the Carry On film in which Bernard Bresslaw says to (I think) Jim Dale, ‘Can I dip my bread in your gravy?’ Both are incarcerated in adjacent prison cells. Bresslaw removes a stone in the wall between them, pops his head through and asks the question. Dale, as acquiescent as ever, hands over his dish of gravy. Predictably, Bresslaw takes it back through the hole in the wall. Then, with true comic timing, the next thing we see is the stone being replaced and a suitably indignant Dale cursing his luck. It’s one of my favourite Carry On moments. Partly because ‘gravy’ is one of my favourite words, carrying so many meanings, yet always returning to its simple, viscous self. As a wordsmith, it’s important to have favourite words. Even if you are very unlikely to use them in your daily work. For they act as a perfect counterbalance to the payload of corporate vocabulary we all recycle every day.
Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk
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I'm not sure, but I remember this differently. Breslaw says "Do you want to dip your bread in my gravy" (NB: Possibly based on the title of an old Jazz song). Dale - I think it was he - looks at his dry bread and thinking there may be gravy on offer places it in the hole. Only for it to disappear and the stone be replaced.
ReplyDeleteIn marketing terms (or legal) it was an 'invitation to treat' followed by a breach of contract. In reality a rip off. But one that would only work once.
I was never very good at telling jokes. Now it seems I'm just as bad at remembering them!
ReplyDeleteThanks for putting me right. Now, I can re-remember it exactly the way it was. I only arsked...
I was thinking again about this last night.
ReplyDeleteDale heard an 'invitation to treat' and then saw a breach on contract. But it would never stand up in court.
Breslaw could claim he was merely engaging in some market research, and that 'if' he had some gravy would Dale like to dip his bread in it? He could go on to claim that the fact that Dale had given up his bread indicated an indifference to bread or gravy. A view not shared by Breslaw.
Its the clever use of language that makes the joke (and is ruined by over analysis).
It should also make us consider what will be interpreted by what we say? What is the received message ? Its probably not what we are saying at all.
Perhaps all this would become a lot clearer if we actually went to the source, by tracking down the very film itself - ascertaining the name of which was the very first signal I hoped I'd sent in this blaaagh! Somebody has said 'Carry On Up The Khyber'.
ReplyDeleteUp Pompeii
ReplyDeleteBresslaw and Howard
so says http://www.thespinningimage.co.uk/cultfilms/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=578