Adventures of a Private Eye

Exactly what you'd expect: a passable piece of comedic mystery whose main purpose is a wrap around for its infrequent eroticism involving women who don't skip meals. (nice).

I actually really love this fantasy of eccentric British Aristocrats it recreates.

Like its sequel, "Adventures of a Plumber's Mate", "Adventures of a Private Eye" is a cut above the average Brit sex comedy from the same era. There's more going on than just the standard "hapless lad has a job that involves meeting lots of frisky housewives with violent husbands", although there's that, too, of course. There's also a sub-film noir plot our inexperienced hero tries to solve, a gothic horror setting in a manor house with a macabre butler, and a séance.

More comedic set-ups - and the movie has more than you can count - means more jokes, which also means more likelihood that the jokes might land. Unbelievably, this time, a few actually do, and I found myself chuckling on occasion.

For future reference, this is the sex comedy where the other Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, plays a swinging private eye - though there's certainly nothing about him that would suggest being a babe magnet - who leaves his business in the hands of his young protégé, who ends up taking on one of his cases. He gets a new secretary, and expects a sexy, available "bird" like the one his boss had, but instead gets an odd, ageless woman with round spectacles.

There's also a scene where he ends up dressed as a woman - nothing too special about that - but then has to perform on stage with a burlesque dancer.

Both the actress who plays the dancer, and the one who plays the odd secretary, are superior to the material, especially the multi-talented dancer.

I say check it out.

The second of the "Adventures" series, this one features Chris Neil as Bob, an assistant to a P.I. who tries to crack a case when his boss is on vacation. The whole ordeal is done in a slow, boring, unfunny, contrived sort of way.

However, the film perks up when Adrienne Posta comes in. Posta delivers a superb impersonation of Oscar-winning actress Liza Minelli (named Lisa Moroni here) who gives him shelter when the bad guys attempt to eliminate him when he's starting to get a bead on solving the case. Posta portrays Minelli from her role in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" and looks and sounds like her as well. It's a darkhorse candidate in my book for the best mimic job in the history of cinema. Otherwise, there's not much here to like.

This is just dreadful for a comedy attempt...the bumbling idiot was pathetic doing his best to create laughs out of terrible situations...if it wasn't for some fairly decent looking women in the cast i likely would have quit viewing after the first five minutes of this disaster...well, i've seen enough to know this is a turkey that should be avoided

I thought that, by working backwards through the 'Adventures of…' films, I might see a slight rise in quality with each one I watch, ending with the best, but that is most definitely not the case: in fact, Adventures of a Private Eye, the middle film in the 'trilogy', is so diabolical that it's a wonder they ever made a third film.

The action starts in expected low-rent Confessions knock-off style, with private eye assistant Bob West (Christopher Neil) unable to resist taking over the role of detective while his womanising boss (Jon Pertwee) is out of the office for a few days. Agreeing to help sexy Laura Sutton (Suzy Kendall), who is being blackmailed for £50k, he takes off for the countryside to see which of the other potential heirs to Laura's late husband's fortune could be the the extortionist. As the silly plot progresses, the film turns into a very tired murder/mystery farce, albeit one with plenty of gratuitous nudity and soft-core sex featuring some very attractive British babes.

A cavalcade of crass and not in the least bit funny japes, Private Eye is a sorry state of affairs that makes even the weakest of the Confessions movies look like pure comedic genius. But what is REALLY sad about this film is seeing such a talented cast of British comic actors going to such waste: among those given absolutely nothing to work with are Irene Handl, Diana Dors, Liz Fraser, Harry H. Corbett, Willie Rushton, and Ian Lavender.

2.5/10, generously rounded up to 3 for the nostalgia factor, the film showing me West Byfleet Railway Station in all of its 70s glory and an early appearance by Peter Moran, who would go on to play obnoxious ginger Pogo Patterson in classic kids' TV series Grange Hill.