Adventures of a Private Eye (1977)

Charming and brutal

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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

"Adventures of a private eye" is the old version of the several sex-flicks that you can watch nowadays. It brings us the story of a dumbly assistant of a private investigator, that tries to solve a case while his boss is away on vacation. What follows is a lot of chaos and sex sells.While some see this movie very critically, I was all in all relatively entertained by it. Of course some of the jokes and punchlines turn out rather simple and there is no doubt that it was of high interest for the producers to add some nudity, but if you accept this as given, there are actually quite a few funny moments in the film. The story of someone failing his job badly is of course not very creative in itself, but the way this is used to create a plot with some humorous potential is at least solid.This is something to turn our head off and relax. Don't watch it for the plot or any message. Under this condition, you can actually have some fun with it.

For those who won't have been around at the time that this film was released they will look at the cast and wonder.There is Jon Letters,Dr Who,Harry H.,Corbett,Steptoe,Ian Lavender,Private Pike.Additionally Diana Ford,Irene Handel and Fred Emney.The reason for their participation in this film is that other than spin offs and a few American financed films this is the only type of film that was being made.So the actors were prepared to take What they could get.Now you can have some funny sex films but this wasn't one of them.It is unfunny and truly dreadful.It took the British film industry many years to get out of the doldrums.

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.