Adventures of a Private Eye (1977)
Directed by Stanley A. Long

Film Review

As if Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) was not bad enough, the same production team turned out an even greater comedy disaster, showing the lamentable state of the British film industry as it mined the nadir of good taste in a last ditch attempt to prise punters away from their television sets.  Adventures of a Private Eye serves up the by now familiar concoction of low-grade porn and tacky sex jokes which devotees of this series and its nearest rival, the Confessions films, blithely mistook for entertainment.The amiable singer-actor Christopher Neil clearly has no inhibitions about appearing stark naked in front of a camera (leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination), but you would have thought he'd have had more sense than to do so (roughly once every ten minutes, removing all of his clothes on the flimsiest of pretexts) in this festering pile of ill-conceived crud.

If you think that a film which can call upon the comedic talents of Diana Dors, Harry H. Corbett, Jon Pertwee and Willie Rushton could hardly go amiss, you'd be wrong.  Crude and risqué the humour may be, but the laughs are harder to come by than a bowtie in a nudist camp.  Adrienne Posta's classy send-up of Liza Minnelli from Cabaret is the one bright spot in an otherwise dismal film.  And to think that the makers of this film had the audacity to inflict a further atrocity (Adventures of a Plumber's Mate) on the British public.  There really should be a law against this kind of thing...

Film Synopsis

Even though Bob West has been assistant to private detective Judd Blake for only a few weeks, he already thinks he has a feel for the job and is eager to prove himself.  His opportunity to do just that comes when his employer goes off to conduct some very private investigations, leaving Bob in charge of the office.  Bob's first client is Laura Sutton, an attractive model who has received a blackmail demand from someone threatening to rob her of her inheritance by disclosing some extremely compromising photographs.  Bob accepts Laura's case, to identify the mysterious blackmailer, without a moment's hesitation.  The number one suspect is Laura's former photographer, Scott.  Having failed to find any incriminating evidence in Scott's flat, Bob joins Laura at her ancestral home, Grimsdyke Manor, where there is no shortage of suspects.  When a murder is committed under his very nose, Bob must act fast or his one opportunity to prove himself as a private dick will be blown...