Personal Services

Please see my article The Girls On The Avenue for a personal prelude to this review of Personal Services.

Personal Services

I love Sex, it's so delightfully silly. All that huffin''n'puffin' over a reasonably simple interchange of bodily fluids (and variations). Perhaps swapping snotty hankerchiefs will be considered "sexy" in the future, who knows?

In Personal Services, a little-known comic movie directed by Monty Python's Terry Jones, Julie Walters plays Christine Painter (based on the real Cynthia Payne*) a rather down to earth woman who's never particularly cared for sex...and who falls into low-key prostitution through circumstance.

She soon discovers, though, that the real money (in England, anyway) is in providing personal services for men, often pillars of society, such as:

• members of the cloth
• members of parliament
• judges
• top bankers

...who want to be debased by being:

• chained up
• urinated upon
• locked in a cupboard
• abused 
• spanked

...or feel the freedom to wear fetishist's leather, rubber or female clothing. Why? Because...

"...The world is full of naughty schoolboys..."

Now, don't expect any thing "sexy" in Personal Services, a touching, curious film. There's no eroticism, no bodies beautiful, on show. Instead,there are some very human, sometimes old and/or paunchy men, who need to indulge in particular kinds of kinkiness to feel human. e.g. after Cynthia's establishment has been raided by the police, one of her clients, Morton, is thrown in jail, dressed in french maid's uniform...

Morton:       I am a retired officer of the RAF. I flew 207 missions over occupied territories in bra & panties.

Policeman:   You're a disgrace

THE CELL DOOR SLAMS SHUT.

Morton:       That's no way to treat a lady! 

If you choose to live in a sexual fantasy world of sixpack stomachs & ripping bodices or horny vixens who'll do "anything", Personal Services may be a disturbing experience for you. However, if you're prepared to see Sex in a slightly different light...or accept that others see it differently, you could have a lot of fun with it...and be educated in the process.

In the end, though, Christine sees herself as merely a compassionate provider of relief for a terrible burden that men bear. As she says to one policeman after the raid:

Christine:       I'm responsible, not the men. You can't expect men to be responsible.  When the balls are full, the brain is empty.

Personal Services is a strange, ultimately feelgood movie, delightfully memorable and certainly eye-opening. It's a shame that its subject matter worries people so much.

I say "...C'est La vie!..."

Now available as a dual feature with Over Her Dead Body

"...Whilst the sad aspects of prostitution is merley glossed over the film on the whole stands as an excellent comedy, packed with superb performances and fast, furious scripts. Cheerfully British!..." Amazon UK reviewer Ian Phillips 

* there's a disclaimer about Cynthia Payne at the start of the movie...but since she's been hired for the movie as a consultant, I gather it's only there for legal reasons (she was still battling her case in court).

Personal Service was based on

Paul Bailey's biography of Cynthia Payne An English Madam