Percy (1971)

Surgeon Emmanuel Whitbread (Denholm Elliott) believes he has perfected pioneering penis-transplant surgery but he needs a patient or two (a recipient and a donor).

Meanwhile, antique dealer Edwin Anthony (Hywel Bennett) is on his way to deliver a pricey cut-glass chandelier to an obnoxious American customer.

Several storeys above him, a young man is disturbed in flagrante delicto with a married woman.

He has just one escape route – onto her balcony. “But darling . . .” his paramour murmurs as he clambers out of the window, “we don’t have a balcony”.

The luckless lover and his unexpected soft landing are rushed to the hospital. One is dead, the other will probably wish he was. But the doctor is delighted. He has his patients.

Young Edwin – now twice the man he used to be – nicknames his new acquisition “Percy” and becomes determined to find out the identity of the donor by interviewing the bereaved friends of the deceased chap.

Finally, he finds the woman he is seeking, the lovely Cyd Hayman – and the temptation to bring Percy home is a hard one to resist. So hard, in fact, that he promptly sets out on a second quest, to reacquaint his new “friend” with all the other women it had known. Phallic gags abound.

Director Ralph Thomas made his name with the Doctor series of comedies, but you can bet your scalpel that Sir Lancelot Spratt wouldn’t have touched the operation in this film célèbre with a ten-foot pole.

No wonder Hywel Bennett refused the equally dreadful sequel, Percy’s Progress (1974).

Edwin Anthony
Hywel Bennett
Emmanuel Whitbread
Denholm Elliott
Helga
Elke Sommer
Dorothy Chiltern-Barlow
Britt Ekland
Moira Warrington
Cyd Hayman
Hazel
Janet Key
Miss Elder
Tracey Crisp
Rita La Rousse
Antonia Ellis
Mrs Penney
Tracy Reed
James Vaile
Patrick Mower
Sister Flanagan
Pauline Delany
Maggie Hyde
Adrienne Posta
Marilyn
Julia Foster

Director
Ralph Thomas