Les aventures érotiques d'un chauffeur de taxi

I have now seen more British sex comedies than any non-British- compulsive-pud-puller-from-the-1970's by all rights should have. The best of this genre (relatively speaking, of course) is the "Confessions of" series, of which this an obvious--and clearly inferior--knock-off. Still, it's also better than stuff like "The Amorous Milkman" and the "What's Up" series (and I'm sure I've only begun to plumb the dismal depths of this genre). This movie, as you might guess, is about the adventures of a taxi driver. Like 'the "Confessions of" series it purports to be somewhat realistic slice-of-life look at the earthy British working-class (but I suspect that if the actual British working class were all getting laid this much, they wouldn't have always been angry and on strike in the 70's). This movie isn't any less realistic than the "Confessions of" series, but it's a lot less funny. And Barry Evans is not nearly as charming and likable as Robin Askwith, let alone Michael Caine (he is always turning around and talking into the camera like Cain in "Alfie").

But--let's face it--nobody really watched these movies for the comedy or for the male lead. And the female cast here is pretty impressive. Judy Geeson has one of those irritating roles of a stripper who we never actually see strip, but she is pretty funny as the Evan's roommate's girlfriend whose pet snake ("part of my act") creates much mayhem. Anna (daughter of Igemar) Bergman plays a fellow stripper who DOES strip and who later gives the protagonist a good sound shagging. The producers apparently couldn't get Linda Hayden from the "Confessions of" series, so they got the next best thing--her younger sister Jane, who Evan's character rescues from a suicide attempt and almost scores with. 50's bombshell Liz Frazier ("I'm Alright Jack") has a genuinely funny role as a prostitute who has a little, uh, accident with a very unfortunate client in the back of the hero's cab. And Angela Scoular and Prudence Drage have small parts (but clearly saved the producers a lot on wardrobe costs). Only Adrienne Posta is kind of irritating as Evan's oft-cuckolded fiancée (she's supposed to be irritating, but she REALLY overdoes it). She also belts out the horrid theme song "My Cruisin' Casanova" (it's no wonder the British Empire collapsed).

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who doesn't already have some misbegotten affection for this genre, but you could do worse I guess.

There is a video game from Sega called Crazy Taxi, in which you drove a taxi all over a city in a haphazard matter to earn bigger money and tips from your fares. But that game pales in comparision to this movie, the true "Crazy Taxi".

Barry Evans (who would ironically live his last years driving taxis after a succesful career as a British-sitcom star) plays Joe North, a taxi driver in London who is the subject of the adventure. There's no real plot, just him getting into all sorts of sexual situations with women of varying degrees of beauty. We see him talking into the camera to the audience about his plans to woo the women he meets into having sexual encounters with him.

Evans is pretty good, about the same as Christopher Neil would be in the next two films. Stephen Lewis (Inspector Blakey of "On The Buses" fame) has a small role as a doorman in a strip club. The aging Diana Dors plays Joe's mother. An O.K. timewatcher, but it's quite titalating at times (talky too). Bravo (The Canadian version) loves showing these 70's British sex comedies; they've shown three "Adventures" movies.

For some reason, they borrowed a bit of Sesame Street's theme song's music to create theirs.

Problem with sex comedies is they are not sexy or funny. Most are cheaply made to make some easy cash. Of course before the internet these films had a captive market - men.

There are worse film than this - if you are British and over 50 you will see a few familiar faces.

What is to be said in the favour of Adventures of a Taxi Driver? Very little, it's sad to say. The film gives new meaning to the term second hand: it's a rip-off of the Robin Askwith Confessions series of sex comedies, which themselves were already sub-Carry On crossed with continental saucy fare. Taxi Driver also mixes in elements of Alfie (the direct to camera narration of the Lothario protagonist), On the Buses (the bickering family arguments) and British B movies of the early 60s involving petty crime. This wholesale appropriation of other people's ideas might be acceptable if they were used here with any skill or aplomb; as it is, the film is tedious, plot less, poorly directed and almost aggressively unfunny. It's attitude to women is dismissive and offensive, and even the usually charming Barry Evans - who made the infantile and racist sitcom Mind Your Language palatable - is heavy handed and dislikeable here.

The few pluses include good comic turns from Adrienne Posta and Diana Dors, a winsome performance from Marc Harrison as Evans' thieving brother and the chance to see, briefly, Stephan Lewis doing Blakey as a strip-show doorman. There's also some intriguing footage of mid-70s Soho which might be of value to social historians.

I suppose that the film does capture a certain mood of cultural desperation which clearly reigned in the UK at the time. Evans' sexual shennanigans seem like the last resort of a man with nothing else to do; the sexual revolution has failed to make life interesting, as people are just as boorish and neurotic and dumb as they ever were. Whether this is a real reflection of the times or merely the projection of the filmmakers' own limited intelligence and wit is a matter of conjecture, although the huge box office success of the film suggests that it did offer the film-going population something they could respond to.

Although the film is about sexual adventures, the sex scenes themselves are as sexy as bromide, with not a single moment of chemistry between Evans (who was gay in reality) and the various women he disrobes.

The first in a series of abysmal Confessions-wannabes, the Adventures trilogy are sterile, desperately unfunny sex comedies, with horrendous direction and dire production values.

The first starred a miscast Barry Evans, trying hard to be laddish but drawing somewhat short. He's a sensitive chap, the sort that can tell "whether a bird's had a right good seeing-to the night before" and cheers himself up by "picking up a bit of crumpet." Evans's constant talking straight to camera is supposed to be endearing, but it's really just irritating. Christopher Neil's Bob West made this a more likeable trait in Adventures of a Private Eye, though it was toned down and notably dropped altogether for the third film in the franchise.

The series always goes farther than Confessions ever did, too. So that while Timmy Lea's escapades were really the next generation of Carry Ons with a few more boobs, the Adventures have a slightly nasty edge. After four weeks of watching Robin Askwith's rear end it's a shock to see Evans's and Neil's willy flapping all over the place, and the sex scenes are notably more graphic. In particular, a scene intimating a woman being penetrated by a snake lurches the film towards X-rated territory. Sex with animals seemed to be a particular preoccupation of the series, with the second sequel, Plumber's Mate, featuring a coupling with a mouse. Look out too for pathetically staged "squashed cat" scenario (cue man off camera making unconvincing "cat" noises), the nadir of Plumber's Mate, one of the most amateurish films I've ever seen.

On the subject of the sequels, Private Eye surprises by being halfway decent, though still cries out for incidental music to perk up the somewhat lifeless atmosphere. Even performing the theme song, Christopher Neil gives a zippy, amiable performance, something he was unable to do with the obnoxious character of Sid South in Plumber's Mate. One thing the series did bring to the proceedings was plots, so much so that Private Eye even largely forgets to put the sex into sex comedy. It takes away the nasty edge for once, and is more traditionally humorous. (Basically, it's got some jokes in it.)

But back to Taxi Driver, a picture that never gets started. The irksome theme tune is sung twice during the movie in a flagging bid to pep up proceedings, and five times as an instrumental. David Brierley (One of the K-9s from Doctor Who, no less!) provides an opening monologue, juxtaposing images of cab life with an upbeat narration. So then when he talks about the "gallant knights of the road", we see a cabbie flicking the v-sign, and so on. And on. And on. Like the rest of the films pace, it's a joke that wears thin after the first three seconds, and positively aches by being extended past its natural lifespan.

Transvestites, prostitutes and oral sex references, the weirdest thing about all this is that this sexist tripe was written by a woman.