Latex Movie Review: Personal Services

By 1985 Terry Jones had only directed three films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail which he co-directed with Terry Gilliam, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python's Meaning of Life. Jones intended to further his film career beyond the Pythons, but by then the only assignment he had landed was to write the script for the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. David Leland had written a script inspired by the life of notorious madam Cynthia Payne who's clients included members of parliament and other men of prominence, and the first person he thought of directing the film was his good friend Terry Jones. Terry jumped at the chance to direct a non-Python movie, but would be directing a script he had not written. The end result was a very pleasant comedy.

Julie Walters plays Christine Painter, a waitress who was heavily in debt. Mistaken for a prostitute she is offered money for sex by an old man who was looking for her neighbor ( Shirley Stelfox ) who is running her own brothel business. Initially disgusted by the offer she is soon fascinated by the prospect of making the equivalent of a months pay in a single night. Teaming up with her neighbor Chistine starts her own brothel, eventually becoming it's madam and attracting a clientele which is nearly exclusively old men. The payoff joke here is that her clients are so prominent that it becomes impossible to prosecute her because most of the judges were former clients. Most of the comedy here comes from the different fetishes of each client, most which chose to cross dress while at the brothel. This is not the high camp cross dressing found in a typical Monty Python episode but something more serious. Given the material Jones must be complimented for not going overboard and turning the movie into a Python sketch but instead treating the script as a serious drama. The only real complaint anyone can have about this movie is that it has no Pythonesque humor. But for a slow paced comedy Personal Services is a charmer.

THE SCENE:
Over the years Personal Services has picked up the reputation of having Julie Walters wearing a lot of kinky outfits as she services her customers. These are false memories, partially because many of those who had seen this movie had done so in 1986 and not seen it again since. And to be fair, there were very few movies at the time where the lead actress wears a catsuit. But this film is a British comedy, and most of the costumes worn by Julie and Shirley Stelfox fall into the normal category, such as secretary, governess and school girls with jumpers. There is actually very little of Julie wearing anything truly kinky. At 21 minutes there is a brief scene with her wearing a black bustier. The memorable moment is when Julie wears a black shiny catsuit at 1 hour 3 minutes. ( The material was possibly vinyl or perhaps satin. I could not make out which on the video tape I reviewed. But it was plenty shiny, not polished latex shiny, more of a soft shiny. ) The whole scene is less than a minute. Julie walks into a room wearing the catsuit and whips a John who is tied up and wearing women's underwear. Julie steps out into the hallway for a phone call, then the scene cuts to Julie and Shirley wearing schoolgirl jumper uniforms as they discipline yet another John. It is that brief. Shirley Stelfox briefly wears a black vinyl bustier and long black vinyl gloves 4 minutes into the movie, part of a gag where she finds out the John who hired her wanted a different outfit.