The British sex films from 1968-1982 are much maligned within the British commonwealth and almost completely unknown outside it. For some reason I've seen any number of them now thanks to DVD companies like Jezebel and Wham! USA, and they really shouldn't be tarred with one brush. This movie, for instance, is actually pretty good. It was directed by the talented Martin Campbell who later went on to do "Eskimo Nell", which might be the best of all these films (and, unlike a lot of the hacks that toiled in this "genre", Campbell eventually became a big-name director, even doing a James Bond film years later).
This movie is not as funny as "Eskimo Nell", but it has a lot more sex. It's definitely a very far-out male fantasy about a handsome novelist- turned-cat-burglar (David Warbeck) who keeps running into the attractive lady of the house during his jobs, who he then invariably seduces and works over so well in bed that she lets him get away with her jewels, gives a false of a description of him to the police, and in one case even invites him back for seconds. The police meanwhile are no help (not surprisingly since the dissembling "victims" variously describe the burglar as a one-armed midget, a 6'6" Russian with a hare-lip, etc.). One of the detectives on the case is obsessed with pornography and is always neglecting his job, endlessly discussing it and trading it with a reporter. The lead detective meanwhile is in love with a pretty female insurance investigator. He is alarmed when she sets herself up as bait for the burglar, but he ought to be more worried for the burglar since she turns out to be sexually insatiable and a black-belt in karate!
David Warbeck later appeared in three Lucio Fulci horror movies. Michael Armstrong, director of "Mark of the Devil" and the lead in "Eskimo Nell", plays the easily distracted detective. Of course, there's also plenty of nice crumpet here like Jenny Westbrook, a regular in these type of films, who plays the first victim, and Dianne Keen who plays the insurance investigator . Films like this could ONLY have been made in Britain in the 1970's and they wouldn't be made anywhere today. That in itself makes them worth checking out in my book, but this one is also pretty good to boot.
