Adventures of a Plumber's Mate

More than adequate soft core pornography with some comedy asides squeezed in and an uninteresting plot of a guy in debt to the mob.

That's really it. The main guy is basically likeable.

"Adventures of a Plumber's Mate" is definitely a cut above the average British sex comedy, and I realise that isn't saying much. Looking at the title you would expect a rip-off of those "Confessions" movies with Robin Askwith, and you wouldn't exactly be disappointed. The set-up is the same: a hapless young man with a working class job has a series of misadventures at work, usually involving loose women and their uptight husbands. There's a lot of nudity and low-brow humour, none of which is really funny, and silly accents and ridiculous characterisations.

However, there's quite a bit more going on in this movie than that. The movie is less episodic than those "Confessions" films, and all the other movies that came in its wake, with generic jobs in the title. The thing is this one has a plot about the protagonist trying to get out of debt that he owes to his landlord and a local bookie who has two henchmen after him. Although his forays into people's homes as a plumber are the typical sex comedy fare, what with women's dresses getting stuck in garbage disposal and torn off, leaving them naked, and a seductress handcuffing herself to the hero when her criminal husband is on his way home from the klink - the overarching narrative is more grounded in reality and thus feels a bit more relatable.

I enjoyed this movie - I say check it out.

This is a run of the mill British farce with lots of British sex. The Italians make sex look wholesome, the French make it erotic, the Americans make it dirty but the Brits laugh about it. Lots of nude ladies and I lost count of the bare boobs. But it's all quite harmless and fun, done in that "No Sex Please We're British" style. This movie won't win critical raves or film festival honours. But I happened to be alone all weekend and it was just the ticket Saturday night with a beer and a bag of chips (crisps?) after a hard day of laying wooden flooring. It's silly and saucy in the best British tradition.

The third and last of director Stanley Long's 'Adventures of...' sex comedies, Plumber's Mate sees Christopher Neil once again taking the lead, this time as opportunistic, randy, Jack-the-lad Sidney South, who, up to his neck in debt and facing a severe pummelling, takes on a series of illegal jobs to try and earn some much needed readies. Meanwhile, a gangster and his crony want a word with Sid about a missing toilet seat that is far more valuable than it seems...

Another attempt by Long to emulate the success of the popular Confessions series, Plumber's mate misses the mark thanks to a lack of decent laughs and a central character who is nowhere near as lovable as Robin Askwith's hapless chump Timmy Lea: as amiable as he may seem, Sid is still a gambler, a misogynistic love-rat, and a petty criminal, willing to flout serious laws in order to save his own bacon. It's hard to side with such a no-hoper, or to find his desperate antics all that hilarious.

That said, while nowhere near as funny or as good-natured as the convivial Confessions films, Plumber's Mate still manages to be mildly diverting nonsense thanks to its endless stream of full-on nudity from a bevy of beauties, and a fun supporting cast that features many faces that will be all too familiar to fans of 70s British TV (Stephen 'Blakey' Lewis, Willie Rushton, Elaine Paige, Arthur Mullard, and Christopher Biggins, to name but a few).

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Compared with the tacky 'Confessions of' series, the first two 'Adventures of' films felt a little more classy with actual plots. This however is horrible. It's a humourless, very poorly made crime film with an exceptionally unpleasant lead character.

Christopher Neil, who was the taxi driver in the first movie plays an absolutely detestable character. He's a cruel, spiteful and ignorant sexist yob. Sexist! OK, you wouldn't expect a film like this to be particularly woke but in a so-called comedy you wouldn't expect such aggressive misogyny - or for that to be a basis of humour. There's also a plot which is the dullest crime story imaginable. That introduces a series of unlikeable, unfunny boring characters. These help to drag the tedium out for what seems hours.

Is it worth watching for the sexy ladies? No. The progression of characterless one-dimensional naked cardboard cutouts are as erotic as Chinese shadow play. The knickerless girl on the motorcycle at the beginning however is pleasant but the rest of the supposed erotica is just crude, dirty and cheap looking.

I'm obviously not a prude or I wouldn't be watching this but this is a vile, shabby excuse for entertainment which makes you feel dirty and annoyed that you wasted an hour and a half on.