Confessions of a Window Cleaner is a 1974 British sex comedy film, directed by Val Guest.Leach, p.132
Like the other films in the Confessions series; Confessions of a Pop Performer, Confessions of a Driving Instructor and Confessions from a Holiday Camp, it concerns the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea, based on the novels written under that name by Christopher Wood. Each film stars actors Robin Askwith and Antony Booth, and several feature actress Linda Hayden, Askwith's long-time girlfriend.
Plot Timothy "Timmy" Lea is an optimistic but clumsy young man who works alongside his brother-in-law, Sidney "Sid" Noggett, in their window cleaning business. Timmy narrates his day-to-day activities, and he sees many things through the various windows he cleans of houses and big buildings, including many naked women.
Sid and his wife Rosie are expecting their first child, so Sid has employed Timmy to "satisfy" his customers, little realising his bumbling ways and that he is irresistible to women. One day, Timmy meets policewoman Elizabeth "Liz" Radlett, and he is instantly attracted to her. He and Sid go to a social club to watch a burlesque performer, who takes Timmy backstage to have sex with him. During a home window cleaning, Jacqui Brown is overly flirty with Timmy and is bored as her husband is away. Timmy spills liquid detergent and leaves the tap water running, causing an overload of bubbles to fill the kitchen while the pair are having sex.
Later, Timmy meets with Liz again and asks her to the cinema. On another window cleaning job, he winds up having sex with housewife Carole. Timmy often visits his parents, Mr. Lea and Mrs. Lea; Mr. Lea often brings home trinkets and junk he finds at the lost property office. Timmy hangs a moose head that his father has found, but it rips through the wall. During their trip to the movies, Timmy tries to feel up Liz, but she is uninterested in his sexual advances.
Liz's father, Inspector Radlett, is somewhat wary of her daughter's choice of men. On another house visit, Brenda is having sex with Timmy, when they are interrupted by a man he assumes is her husband. He hides under the tiger rug, but it turns out that it was her landlord. On another job, Timmy almost has sex with foreign maid Ingrid, who enjoys yoga, before they are interrupted by her employer, Mrs. Villiers. She then tries to seduce him and gets all dirty in the coal cellar. Next, Timmy ends up having sex with customer Elvie, who pulls out the wall bed, but they are interrupted by her lesbian partner, Ronnie. They have a squabble on the bed before it springs back into the wall with them all on it.
Timmy visits Sid and Rosie, who have given birth to their son, Jason. Later, spending the evening together watching television, Timmy tries again to feel up Liz, but she still rebuffs him. She tells him that she will only make love with the man she marries, and he inadvertently proposes marriage to her. Following this proposal, Liz finally gives in to temptation; they almost have sex, although Timmy is distracted by photos of her parents.
The wedding is arranged, and everyone is dressed up for the big day. But Timmy is knocked unconscious by some removal men and is taken by them on a sofa covered with a sheet in their van. The guests await Timmy's arrival, but the bride turns up before him, and they wait so long that the next wedding is ready to go ahead. When Timmy wakes up and leaves the removal van, he finds himself 60 miles outside London. While he is still missing, the wedding guests are at the reception, not wanting to waste the food. Timmy gets a lift in the back of a boat being towed by a car, but when he arrives at the reception, the guests have already left. Timmy is shocked when he goes home to find Liz being caressed by Sid in the garden outhouse, so he decides to soak them with the hosepipe.
Sid ends up in the hospital with a broken leg, but Timmy forgives him. Timmy gets an apprentice to start window cleaning the following day; Timmy and Liz have broken up, and he goes back to sleeping with other women.
Cast Robin Askwith as Timothy Lea Tony Booth as Sidney Noggett Bill Maynard as Mr Lea Dandy Nichols as Mrs Lea Sheila White as Rosie Noggett Linda Hayden as Elizabeth Radlett John Le Mesurier as Inspector Radlett Richard Wattis as Carole's father Joan Hickson as Mrs Radlett Melissa Stribling as Mrs Villiers Sam Kydd as 1st Removal Man Lionel Murton as Brenda's landlord Katya Wyeth as Carole Sue Longhurst as Jacqui Brown Anita Graham as Ingrid Judy Matheson as Elvie Brian Hall as 2nd removal man Robert Longden as apprentice
Background The film is essentially an adaptation of a sex novel printed in paperback form. It was adapted for the screen in the 1970s, when the British film industry produced a large number of film adaptations of literary works. Sian Barber cites other examples of this trend: Jane Eyre (1970), Wuthering Heights, Black Beauty (1971), The Go-Between (1971), Kidnapped (1972), Treasure Island (1973), Gulliver's Travels (1977), The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), and The Riddle of the Sands (1979).Barber (2013), p. 94-95 Sian Barber points out that while adaptations of highbrow and middlebrow material were hardly unusual by the 1970s, Confessions constitutes a rare early adaptation of low brow popular literature.Barber (2013), p. 94-95Barber (2013), p. 110-124
The series of source novels about Timmy Lea had benefited from a literary forgery, the notion that Lea was not a fictional character but the actual author. The series was a sexual fantasy masquerading as confessional writing, a genre which tends to attract audiences. When novice film producer Greg Smith became interested in adapting the novels to screen, the hoax was maintained and Timmy Lea received credits as the author of the source material. The actual author and screenwriter, Christopher Wood, hardly resembled his creation.
Guest says he was approached by Greg Smith and Michael Klinger to make the film as he had directed Au Pair Girls in 1972. Guest agreed provided if he wrote and directed the first one he would get a percentage of profits for that and any sequels.
Confessions was a low-budget film, with a budget of £100,000, but not really an independent film. Producer Michael Klinger tried to secure funding from independent investors, but most of the funding actually came from Columbia Pictures, a fact telling for its period. The condition of the economy of the United Kingdom in the early 1970s had left part of the British film industry dependent on American funds. Being also released through Columbia, the film was the beneficiary of a marketing campaign. It was promoted through advertisements in television and tie-ins in bookstores.Hunt (1998), p. 31-33
The film benefited from changes in the culture of the United Kingdom, with an increasingly permissive society and changes in aspects of the censorship standards. Its aesthetics, themes, and characters derive in part from the then-popular genre of the British sitcom. The working class family, as depicted by the Leas, is not much different from its counterparts in On the Buses (1969–1973) and Bless This House (1971–1976). Timmy's father has the habit of collecting discarded items and bringing them home, making him reminiscent of Albert Steptoe from Steptoe and Son (1962–1974). His mother has the habit of buying consumer items on credit, making her reminiscent of Mrs Butler from On the Buses.
Guest says "we saw an awful lot of people for" the lead including Dennis Waterman before casting Robin Askwith. "We needed the cheeky chappie, simply because it had to be gossamer light, walking the tightrope all the time not going over into anything “icky” you know."
This film series also made a point of casting actors already familiar to television audiences. The idea was probably to attract that audience to the cinema. There was a trend at the time for successful sitcoms to be adapted in film, which produced hits such as Dad's Army (1971), On the Buses (1971), Up Pompeii (1971), and Steptoe and Son (1972). The sitcom-like Confessions could probably appeal to the same audience. Leon Hunt, when examining the success of these films, notes their positions in the Top Twenty of the British box office. In 1971, On the Buses was the second greatest hit of the year, following The Aristocats (1970). Up Pompeii was eighth and Dad's Army was 10th. The only other British comedies which surpassed them were There's a Girl in My Soup (1970, fourth in its year) and Percy (fifth).Hunt (1998), p. 31-33 Hunt argues that the Confessions films combined the style of the "sitcom films" with sexploitation. He suggests the terms "sexcom" as the result of this blending of genres. Hunt (1998), p. 31-33
The interior of the Lea house was depicted as brightly lit and filled with eccentric items of doubtful use, such as a moose head and a gorilla suit. The characters are confined to the "cramped" space of every depicted room, again reminiscent of the sets of a sitcom. The confinement itself suggests claustrophobia, and Sian Barber suggests a connection to another low-budget genre of the time with cramped locations and gaudy scenery: the British horror film.
In criticising the original novels, sociologist Simon Frith had argued that the books derived their unflattering depiction of the British working class from stereotypes. In particular, the stereotypes which the middle class associates for "the great unwashed". Making the series an expression of class discrimination. Sian Barber argues that the films inherited the same attitude towards the working class by embracing negative stereotypes of it. Sidney Noggett and his promiscuity, Rosie and her hair rollers, and the kleptomaniac tendencies of Mr. Lea all derive from these stereotypes. Yet, the films actually tone down the criminal tendencies of the Lea family. In the books, Timmy himself is a former prison convict, having been arrested for stealing the lead off a church roof. In the films, Timmy has no such history, probably in an effort to make him more sympathetic to the audience. Production notes reveal that a sequel called Confessions from the Clink was considered by the production team, but the idea was abandoned by February, 1974.
Part of the humour of the film derives from a situation based on class stratification in the United Kingdom. The Leas are positioned at the bottom of the working class, barely above the criminal underclass, while the Radletts are upper middle class. The romance of Timmy and Elizabeth across the wide class divide serves to showcase both positions, and contrasts the two families. But the Leas are those depicted as ridiculous in the scenes relating to the aborted wedding, while the Radletts remain respectable.
While the premise of the film would be suitable for a pornographic film, the film focuses less on sexual intercourse and more on associated problems and anxieties. Timmy at first fails to perform, and the film deals with his embarrassment over his sexual inexperience and ineptitude. His sexual encounters are either awkward grappling attempts, or the result of Timmy being seduced and/or dominated by women. This anxiety over the male performance in a sexual relationship is one aspect of the film's humour. Another is a reliance on more traditional elements of a comedy, such as slapstick and characters seen naked by accidental spectators. The sexual acts themselves are typically depicted as "confusing, difficult, and troublesome" throughout the film. A running gag seems to be that Timmy, a cleaner by profession, gets dirtied in several scenes involving sexuality. The implication is that sex itself is a "dirty" activity.