Great Britain

When medical science came up with heart, kidney, and various other organ transplants, the film industry promptly responded with the penis transplant. The result is as delightfully smutty as the traditional British seaside postcard: always naughty, usually rude, and bursting with double meanings. Hywel Bennett plays suave young antique dealer Edwin Anthony, who is rushed to hospital after a singularly nasty accident involving the sharp bits of a chandelier, Sir Emmanuel Whitbread makes history with the resulting operation. 'You are the first man to have someone else's!', he informs our unfortunate hero when he comes round. It turns out that Edwin has done rather well out of the swop, and he spends the rest of the film on a bizarre sexual quest in an effort to discover the identity of the original owner of his new part. A series of rather predictable jokes are introduced as Edwin encounters a society slut, a grandiose gay, and a suburban Jewish housewife, until he lodges with the liberated but rather cold Moira Warrington, and yes, her late husband was indeed the proud possessor of the Percy that has now become very much attached to Edwin. Rather than cut a good idea off in its prime thought the plot now takes in a series of mistresses, including Britt Ekland and Julia Foster, and, anxious to get in on the gross media publicity that the operation has unleashed, Edwin's estranged wife also leaps into the fray. 'Pornography runs riot on the Screen' ran a newspaper headline when Percy was first released (1971). Nothing could he further from the truth: it is all very harmless fun. As well as a good central performance from Hywel Bennett, who mopes about like a dog with a new tail (which is more or less what he has, of course), there are some enjoyable little cameo sequences. A stripper, for example, is imported into the hospital ward to writhe around on the floor to see if Percy can rise to the occasion. Watch, too, for a hilarious portrayal by Denise Coffey of a Scottish ambulance operator - 'Do we have Percy plus, or Percy minus?' - and Denholm Elliot as the scheming surgeon. And, as an added bonus, the Kinks supply the music. MIKE SPARROW