fedor8 How ironic. Who could have possibly guessed it. Who could have known that 25 years later, Terry Jones (the director) would himself become a dirty old man, but a much more wicked dirty old man than the rather harmless perverts featured here. Here's a man who left his wife of 40+ years, to run off with some cheap 20something gold-digging tart old enough to be his granddaughter. Now Grandpa Jones and his Swedish sex-kitten/fantasy-granddaughter are pushing their littler toddler through the streets of London. (Google it and cringe.) Aging gracefully, or at least with a smidgen of dignity, evidently wasn't in the stars for the only Welsh Python. Then again, he always was a filthy old Marxist, not giving a toss about the family unit – and that includes his own. PS celebrates not so much sexual freedom as it romanticizes/celebrates perversion, and we know that left-wingers will always celebrate it, until they're blue in the face, under the guise of "diversity" (their favourite word these days). His wife should have taken this movie seriously, as a sign of her husband's questionable sense of morality.PS isn't a laugh-out-loud comedy. In fact, it isn't even a laugh-out-a-little comedy. It is chuckle-worthy in several places, but that's about it. What it is though is fairly interesting. Hardly attention-grabbing, mind you, perhaps due to the subject matter which makes this movie quite outdated; the forced tackiness may have shocked some people back in 1987, but it's peanuts now. Jones could not have predicted how decadent the world would become, just decades after this movie was made, which must please his cold Marxist heart or else he would have either made this movie more extreme or binned the project entirely. After all, posterity is what he was after, not just the quick buck; how could anyone possibly think that a Marxist could care about financial again? I think they share everything with everyone anyway – much the way Jones will share his estate with his new Nordic sex-toy. She provides the personal services, he provides the cash and jet-set lifestyle.Filming a comedy about prostitutes is certainly neither a difficult nor a commercially risky road to travel. The gags write themselves; what's there NOT to laugh about? And yet, this sleazy comedy fails just in that, in spite of the obvious talents and charisma of Julie Walters. They couldn't have picked a better actress for the part, the problem being that she plays it too broadly, no doubt pushed to this kind of performance by Jones. Unfortunately, her character doesn't make much sense; she is a walking contradiction. Jones and the writer of PS couldn't decide whether they wanted to portray her as bright or downright moronic: there is evidence for both. Her intelligence varies depending on the comedic necessities of the situation/scene at hand, i.e. they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Her behaviour is puzzling; she sometimes behaves as if she's totally new to the business, and yet we are made to understand that she's been whoring around for many years at the point of her introduction.The plot-twist involving Julie's maid, Dolly, did not work. It was obvious from the first moment that guy stepped onto the screen that Dolly was a he. Anyone who watched this movie and found themselves in surprise and shock when it was revealed that Dolly is a man needs to have their vision and perhaps even sexual orientation re-examined. It was akin to putting a wig and make-up on Danny de Vito and expecting that "transformation" to fool the viewer.At best, PS is a semi-failure as a comedy - but not without merit as a time-filler, and certainly nicely filmed. There is little to nothing to learn from Jones's "moral" messages, and there is far too little to laugh at. This subject matter had been covered with far more competence and depth in "Working Girls", a comedy/drama indie film released just a year prior to this one. The notion that behind many chartered accountants, wigged uptight judges, and other upper-class professionals of social repute sexual perverts and ungratified deviates reside is one that Monty Python had already explored several decades earlier, and with much more success. Still, it's so much better than "Eric the Viking". That one truly sunk Jones's flailing career as movie director.

Michael Neumann The story of Cynthia Payne (London's notorious 'Luncheon Voucher Madam') could have easily been made into a tawdry little sex farce, but underneath all the kinky detail is a film aspiring toward something more than just another naughty biography. Julie Walters' vivid performance, bristling with barely suppressed nervous energy, creates a memorable portrait of a working class girl who, to make ends meet, opens a cheerfully uninhibited suburban brothel catering to the milder perversions of errant older gentlemen: costume fantasies; flagellation; transvestitism, and so forth. There's plenty of wit (much of it with a sharp edge) in David Leland's screenplay, which despite its forthright lack of inhibition is remarkably tolerant of (and even sympathetic to) the shortcomings of its characters. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and hide the guilty), but the facts are essentially true (despite a pair of disclaimers) and Terry Jones' direction shows more tact than otherwise might be expected from a former member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a troupe never known for their subtlety or discretion.

Adam Prall I saw this once, over ten years ago, and it has become one of my favorite films ever. It's hilarious and always takes an unexpected turn just when you'd think an ordinary movie would get boring. You can expect some majorly hilarious kink; the "gentlemen" do a great job of acting like VIPs in British society, and while some might take offence/offense at the stereotyping going on, just remember that this is (sorta) based on a woman's real-life experiences. This has an extra special connotation of you're an entrepreneur, because the movie's theme bears a strong metaphorical relationship to the life of anyone who is/has ever been in business for themselves and has had to do "all kinds of things" in order to survive the toughness of satisfying your "market". Heh heh. I highly recommend it!

TM-2 Loved this movie. Some of the scenes make you squirm. Some unpleasant surprises that are somehow funny. Can't help but like the characters - especially the military man who needs some mahogany polished.