Personal Services

R 6.3
1987 1 hr 45 min Comedy

The story of the rise of a madame of a suburban brothel catering to older men, inspired by the real experiences of Cynthia Payne. The story follows Christine Painter as the down-at-heel waitress who, with the help of prostitute Shirley and cross-dressing Wing Commander Morten, seeks to up her earnings by turning her suburban home into a brothel. Before long she and her girls are chaining up judges, spanking Generals and attending to the needs of Honourable Members. Christine sees herself as providing a vital service to these harmless pervs and when finally the house is busted and the case comes to court, it's fair to say that the presiding judge isn't unfamiliar with her work.

  • Cast:
    Julie Walters , Shirley Stelfox , Alec McCowen , Danny Schiller , Tim Woodward , Suzette Llewellyn , Ewan Hooper

Similar titles

Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years—not since he wrote his award winning 'Great American Novel' 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
Wonder Boys 2000
Over the Edge
Over the Edge
Jason (Danny Bedford) is in a crisis. He won’t go to work and stays holed up in his flat. But when his TV breaks, he is forced to call co-worker Richard (Sean Hart) to fix it. All is normal, except when Jason mentions that a friend of his may be dead in his bed. Instead of hightailing it out of the potential murder scene, Richard (who has the hots for Jason) instead not only checks the body (yes, dead) but also proposes a homemade autopsy. And when the scalpel cuts the flesh, these two young men are now in it together. But it is not just one body, a serial killer is roaming London’s streets, but the bodies seem to all end up in Jason’s flat.
Over the Edge 2011
Riding in Cars with Boys
Riding in Cars with Boys
In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.
Riding in Cars with Boys 2001
In & Out
In & Out
A midwestern teacher questions his sexuality after a former student makes a comment about him at the Academy Awards.
In & Out 1997
Kill the Monsters
Kill the Monsters
Three men struggle to save their relationship while traveling across country in search of a doctor they believe will make one of them well.
Kill the Monsters 2018
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose
In 1935, Hungarian-American para-psychologist Nandor Fodor began his investigation of a strange occurrence on the Isle of Man. An average British family, the Irvings, claimed to have been contacted by a mysterious entity at their farm. A talking mongoose. Named Gef (Pronounced "Jeff".)
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose 2023
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
Now a rising young lawyer, Elle Woods is about to make partner at her firm, but when she finds out her dog's relatives are being used as cosmetic test subjects, she heads to Washington D.C. to fight for animal rights.
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde 2003
Hanging Up
Hanging Up
Three sisters - Georgia, Eve, and Maddy - do what they do best with life, love, and lunacy on the telephone lines that bind - when their curmudgeonly father, Lou, is admitted to a Los Angeles Hospital. After years of wild living, intermittent affection, and constant phoning, he is finally threatening to die.
Hanging Up 2000
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Deuce Bigalow is a less than attractive, down on his luck aquarium cleaner. One day he wrecks the house of a gigolo and needs quick money to repair it. The only way he can make it is to become a gigolo himself, taking on an unusual mix of female clients. He encounters a couple of problems, though. He falls in love with one of his unusual clients, and a sleazy police officer is hot on his trail.
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo 1999
I Love You Phillip Morris
I Love You Phillip Morris
Steven Russell leads a seemingly average life – an organ player in the local church, happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force. That is until he has a severe car accident that leads him to the ultimate epiphany: he’s gay and he’s going to live life to the fullest – even if he has to break the law to do it. Taking on an extravagant lifestyle, Steven turns to cons and fraud to make ends meet and is eventually sent to the State Penitentiary where he meets the love of his life, a sensitive, soft-spoken man named Phillip Morris. His devotion to freeing Phillip from jail and building the perfect life together prompts him to attempt (and often succeed at) one impossible con after another.
I Love You Phillip Morris 2010

Reviews

Karry
1987/05/07

Best movie of this year hands down!

... more
Hellen
1987/05/08

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

... more
Evengyny
1987/05/09

Thanks for the memories!

... more
ChicRawIdol
1987/05/10

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

... more
randy filkirk
1987/05/11

This film is a forgotten British Masterpiece, if only for its portrayal of something we still find difficult to come to terms with now in 2016. Everyone has a little inside them of what is shown here, awakening that, sometimes is beyond our own choices, but for us to begin to understand what makes people tick, this film really needs to be watched. There is a little nudity, but more important, there is good all round acting and a solid belief when you reach the end that your time has not been wasted. If you can indeed find a copy i fully recommend you open a bottle of wine, get out the popcorn, close the curtains, lock the door, put out the granny, and enjoy.

... more
fedor8
1987/05/12

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.

... more
Adam Prall
1987/05/13

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!

... more
TM-2
1987/05/14

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.

... more