The time Ingmar Bergman directed a Carry On film

Sid James stared from the window.

The camera, switching to his point of view, pans across an autumnal orchard.

Joan Simms smokes pensively in a bath chair in her slip.

There is a long pause

“Winter once more stalks the land of my youth,” says Sid, his eyes reflecting the wisdom and sadness of age.

“Ooo, saucy,” crackles Joan.

“Cut,” says the tall Swede from behind the camera.

“The script, Ms Simms. The script,” he sighs

Joan Simms pleads with the renowned director.

“Oh, I know, Ingmar, love, I was improvising just a bit. I just thought he might have meant the ‘land of his youth,’ might mean when we was all young and randy.”

But he dismisses her entreaties.

“The script, Ms Simms. Always, always the script. Take time for lunch, now.”

As Ingmar Bergman retires some traditional Swedish meatballs, Joan Simms calls after him.

“But I’ve got to say ‘Oooh saucy at some point, haven’t I?”

Carry on Whispers in the Countryside, Ingmar Bergman’s first Carry On film was not going well.

“Lovely man, Ingmar, lovely,” remembered Joan Simms in a 1985 Wogan interview.

“Obsessed with the nature of existence, but ever so lovely. I’m just not sure he really got innuendo.”

The Swedish master of the human condition was granted the opportunity to take on a Carry On film in 1970 by Sid James.

“Oh dear Sid,” laughed Joan.

“What I don’t think people realised was just how good an actor he was and, after Carry on Camping, he really wanted to try something that stretched him and that’s when Ingmar came on.”

Carry On Whispers in the Countryside was set in pre-war Sweden on a remote farm. The patriarch, played by Sid James, had fallen into melancholy and was attempting to make sense of his life by forging a relationship with his estranged sister, played by Joan Simms.

“Oh, it was a lovely story, ever so good and really had an emotional truth that resonated in a very real, very moving way.

“Thing was though, there was very little chance for Barbara Windsor’s bra to pop off when you’re working with an emotional truth that resonated in a very real, moving way.”

Ultimately, Bergman finished the picture, but after it didn’t play well to audiences, so a studio editor cut in various shots of girls bending over and Bernard Bresslaw going ‘phoar,’ and it was released quietly into cinemas.

Sadly, it flopped badly, and is often left out of the histories of both the Carry On franchise and the Ingmar Bergman franchise.

However if you are lucky and tune into ITV4 on one of those days over Christmas where they inexplicably just show Carry On films, you might be lucky enough to catch Carry On Whispers In the Countryside and judge for yourself.