Adventures of a Plumber's Mate (1978) Poster

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5/10
He has the right pipe for the job
kosmasp8 July 2022
I mean I had to, right? Maybe this pun is intended - although I did not premaditate it. I just came up with it - no pun intended with this one for sure. Now if you are thinking what I am thinking ... what am I thinking? All kidding aside: another sex comedy and the last of the Adventures trilogy. The man responsible for the movies had enough after the third outing (this one right here).

And it may be good to stop something before it goes down the drain ... ah well another pun. Maybe he could've fixed it too. Anyway, a lot of nudity and titilating things to see. But always used for humor rather than arousal - just like the movies before this one. You know what is up (sorry) and if you want to get down with it (again, so sorry ... maybe)
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5/10
British sauce 'n spice
rps-28 February 2003
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.
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4/10
Bog standard, down in the dumps
jaibo8 July 2008
Warning: Spoilers
The only thing which distinguishes this final instalment of the Adventures film trilogy is that the budget has reached a new low and there's a pall of palpable depression, brutality and despair hanging over the whole proceedings. In this episode, the incompetent and rather nasty little misogynist protagonist Sid South (whose first pick-up here informs us has got a small dick) owes rent, bills and debts to a gangster bookie. The bookies are demanding payment with extreme menaces, so in between fixing people's plumbing (his unhappily pursued trade), Sid tries a variety of dodgy money-making schemes, none of which do him any good.

What is fascinating is the sheer contempt that everyone shows everyone else in the film (with the exception of Sid's personality-less barmaid on-off girlfriend), and the dilapidated feel of Britain in the late 70s (the "winter of discontent" was just around the corner). With its petty gangsters roaming around throwing their weight about, and its central character desperately unable to better his financial position, Britain resembles one of those post-Communist Eastern block countries, a dreary dog eat dog landscape in which everyone is mean-spirited, quick to anger, aggressive and anxious. The only thing that brings anyone any respite is the odd bout of loveless sex, performed with all the finesse of fumbling adolescents.

Adventures of a Plumber's Mate is billed as a comedy, but apart from a couple of very obvious comic moments provided by natural clowns like Stephen Lewis (as ever doing Blakey from On the Buses) and Claire Davenport (as a violent masseuse), there's not a laugh to be had in from the whole soul-destroying hour and a half of the film; it isn't even paced like a comedy, more like a particularly bleak Play for Today. This is the product of a defeated nation, with the odd bout of sad-sack snickering punctuating the sound of millions of days in the life gone sour.
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1/10
Not funny at all!
What happened here? The first two movies in the ADVENTURES OF... series were quite funny. Yet somehow a trilogy was formed when the series was tied up with this painfully unfunny movie. It comes as no surprise that the series ended here and no fourth movie was made.

As another person has commented on this page, this movie has a dreary, depressing tone hanging over it. I would like to add that the first two movies were nothing like this. Indeed, from seeing the first two, you would never guess Britain had descended to harsh economic times. In this movie, it's all too clear with its constant reminders of debt, unlikeable aggressive characters, nasty unrepentant officials and painful lack of humour.

What happened to Christopher Neil? His character in ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE was a very funny and likable accident-prone. I thought his performance in that movie was even better than that of Barry Evans in ADVENTURES OF A TAXI DRIVER. In ADVENTURES OF A PLUMBER'S MATE, Christopher Neil seems to be sleepwalking his way through the movie, he didn't seem to enjoy being here and unlike the previous movie, his character was more annoying than likable and none of the ideas funny on paper were funny on the screen.

As if the lead actor weren't bad enough, some first-rate supporting talent is wasted as well.

Arthur Mullard plays a Mr. Big type character but he was too overly aggressive to be funny. Mr. Mullard deserved better than this. Jerold Wells was equally wasted as his sidekick who was given nothing to do other than stand around looking dumb. Mr. Wells had more fun on THE BENNY HILL SHOW and his great cameo in VAULT OF HORROR.

Willie Rushton is also wasted as a quick-buck artist who allocates a number of jobs to the main character to help him pay off debts. His performance here was completely uninspired (who could blame him?) and a long way departed from KEEP IT UP DOWNSTAIRS or ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE EYE.

Suzy Mandell, a veteran of British sex comedies is wasted in a role as a tennis player whose only purpose is to get her kit off and go in the shower. Unlike movies such as COME PLAY WITH ME and INTIMATE GAMES, she is given nothing to do or say that is in the least bit funny. For those who want to see Miss Mandell full-frontal nude, the two mentioned movies will deliver whereas this one doesn't.

But perhaps the most criminal waste of talent here is Stephen Lewis. He plays the boss of the main character and is in full Blakey mode. Not even he could save this movie. Not even the funniest person from the ON THE BUSES franchise could make me laugh here. This is how bad this movie was.

On a positive note, Anna Quayle has a good time with her character, who is the owner of a club or something like that. She has a few funny lines and is backed up by Christopher Biggins, who also has a good time.

The only genuine standout on the cameo list is Claire Davenport who raises a laugh or two as a battleaxe-type masseuse who handles her clients very roughly. Her scene was funny but it couldn't save this movie.

All in all, this is a colossal disappointment for anyone who has seen the first two entries in this series. It brings a sad end to a franchise that was moderately funny in saucy British tradition. My recommendation is to stick to the first two movies and disregard this one as though it doesn't exist.
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5/10
Hello darlin', I'm here to service your pipes.
BA_Harrison9 January 2015
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.
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Strictly third-rate British sex comedy
lazarillo19 April 2010
As you might guess from the title, this movie is about the adventures of a plumber's assistant. In real life it's not exactly a profession where you'd expect a lot of hot sex action, but, of course, it is in movies like this. Aside from the vaguely sexy, plumbing-related hijinks though, there's a genuine plot where our hero "Sid South" (Christopher Neil)owes serious gambling debts to a pair of hulking loan sharks, and gets mixed up with a recently-paroled convict (after he fixes the, um, plumbing of the man's wife)in trying to retrieve a golden toilet seat (or rather a toilet seat with stolen gold concealed in it). There's nothing wrong, of course, with a sex comedy having a plot per se, but this unfortunately is not a very funny one.

These "Adventures of" films are naturally a cheap knock-off of the then-popular "Confessions of" series of sex comedies with Robin Askwith. The whole series is a couple steps down from the genuinely entertaining "Confessions of" series, but this film is also another step or two down from the first film in the series "Adventures of a Taxi Driver". It's a conceit in these films that blue-collar slobs somehow get more sex action than rock stars. The problem is that Neil often acts like a whiny, spoiled rock star and quickly loses the every-man sympathy of the audience. In the opening scene, for instance, he wakes up in his grungy, vermin-infested flat with a pretty nice-looking girl (evidently a one-night stand), who unaccountably considers him to be some kind of catch. But he kicks her to the curb like he's Rod Stewart (actually he leaves her bare-assed naked on the curb after his motorbike rips her dress off).

Neil has zero charisma in his role, but most of the female characters don't really have roles at all. They're all pretty cute, but they put in little more than undraped cameos. Suzy Mandel, for instance, was such an appealing actress that she sometimes appeared on the posters of movies she wasn't even in (like the French film "Pussy Talk"). Later, she went to the US and ended up in a big-budget XXX film,but they actually let her use a body double for the XXX scenes. Anyway, she's pretty much wasted as one of a quartet of "tennis girls" who catch the protagonist after he decides to use the ladies' shower for no real reason while on a job (in real-life he'd probably be reported as a sex pervert, but of course that's not what happens here. . .). The only characters I liked were the male character actors like the two loan sharks and "Sid's" boss. Their lower-class Brit accents were often virtually unintelligible, but they were at least funny.
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5/10
Everyone's got to start somewhere
malcolmgsw29 February 2016
Elaine Paige made her film debut in this British sex film.At the time the British film industry was in a very poor state.Often sex films were the only opportunity for actors to appear on screen.So that is the reason that Richard Caldicott appears.This film is a smaller budgeted version of the Confession series,which in turn took over when the Carry Ons had their day.This film is actually amusing in parts unlike the Confessions which were unfunny and crass.There is one very funny shot of a amateurs wobbling breasts.However Arthur Millard in his last film does rather exhibit his acting limitations.Rather redolent of the period.
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3/10
Drap. Only spelt with a "C"
neil-47621 March 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I have a soft spot for British sex comedies of the 70s. They tend to have a cheerful vulgarity which is a healthy and amusing reflection of the general British embarrassment at anything to do with (whisper it now), "S. E. X." They also tend to be a good place to spot familiar and talented British actors dropping their game a bit in order to make a few extra coppers to pay the mortgage - after all, you never know where the next job is coming from, do you? Well, let's hope it's not from another film like this one. This film displays some of 1970s Britain's best acting talent working their little tails off, giving it all they've got, in a comedy where someone forgot to include the jokes.

This film isn't funny. The end. It is glum - grim, almost - with a leading man who wanders around with a face like thunder. Yes, the protagonists in films like this are supposed to be beset by all sorts of improbable problems but, dear me, they are supposed to rise above them with a wry and rueful twist of the lips, a philosophical cock of the head, and smile off into the next crisis. The otherwise not unlikeable Christopher Neil looks as if he wants to kill someone.

Oh well, I suppose the pretty girls count for something.
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7/10
Slips of paper and a golden toilet seat
Groverdox4 January 2021
"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.
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6/10
Inspired a generation of youths to get a plumbing degree and then be greatly disappointed by the lack of tail they got.
GiraffeDoor25 February 2020
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.
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Pretty good.
BlackJack_B29 March 2002
For once, a protagonist who doesn't smoke! I swear, they love their cigarettes in Great Britain, and it seemed in every sex comedy, someone is lighting up.

One of the movies from the British-made "Adventures" series, this one is actually a good one. A likeable Lothario plumber named Sid is having trouble paying the bookies and must get 1000 pounds paid to them or "else". In between plumbing jobs, he works for a small-time crime boss who gives him "jobs" to do, and they all go wrong for him. As with all movies in this series, people go naked, but here, there aren't any sex scenes for once, but there are some funny scenes created from the situations the plumber gets into.

Stephen Lewis, who played Inspector Blakey from "On The Buses", has a small role as Sid's boss, the aptly named B.A. Crapper. Yes, this is a very British film, with some people's accents being very difficult to decipher, but it's still worth seeing, although it's probably unavailable in the U.S. If you live in a British Commonwealth country, you'll find it.
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