Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974)

Director:

Val Guest

Writers:

Val Guest (writer)
Christopher Wood (novel)

Release Date:

8 November 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

The dirty window cleaner reveals everything!

Plot:

Young Timmy starts as a window cleaner in the little company of his brother. Soon he learns that some female customers expect additional service...

Plot Keywords:

Window Cleaner | Phone Booth | Moose Head | First Part | Bucket

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Robin Askwith	...	Timothy Lea
Anthony Booth	...	Sidney Noggett
Sheila White	...	Rosie Noggett
Dandy Nichols	...	Mrs. Lea
Bill Maynard	...	Mr. Lea
Linda Hayden	...	Elizabeth Radlett
John Le Mesurier	...	Inspector Radlett
Joan Hickson	...	Mrs. Radlett
Katya Wyeth	...	Carole
Richard Wattis	...	Carole's Father
Melissa Stribling	...	Mrs. Villiers
Anita Graham	...	Ingrid
Sam Kydd	...	1st Removal Man
Brian Hall	...	2nd Removal Man
Christine Donna	...	Lil Lamour

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Ireland:18 | Finland:K-18 | Norway:16 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Among those who turned down the lead role were Dennis Waterman, Richard Beckinsale, Richard O'Sullivan and, according to his own account, Nicky Henson.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: When Sid Noggett (Anthony Booth) stops his Mini van outside the church at Timmy's wedding, he gets out and comes into the church. Behind him, the van starts to roll away backwards, but in the next shot is stationary. Either it was planned as part of the story that the van would roll away and the story was changed, or Booth forgot to set the handbrake when he stopped the vehicle.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "X-Rated" (2004)

Soundtrack:

This Is Your Life Timmy Lea

Tony Booth appears in a Z-rate 'sex comedy' Then his son-in-law gets into Downing Street and things go downhill....

ahhh...dear old nineteen seventy four. The world's economy was crumbling under the impact of the oil shock, Richard Nixon's head was on the block and wars were raging in Vietnam, Ulster, Cyprus and Cambodia. If you were a randy adolescent, what better way to escape the madness than by slipping into a grotty pre-Multiplex era cinema, Barrat's sherbert fountain in hand, Pearl and Dean ads in your ears and explore the wonderful new world of the permissive society? The Joy of Sex had just been published, Aids was still many years away...what carnal delights could be had in those bell-bottomed, glammed up times? And if Confessions of a Window Cleaner's protagonist, young Timmy Lea, was at all typical, then being a demin-clad, rubber lipped minger was no barrier to scoring more hole-in-ones than Tiger Woods. Robin Askwith, previously a bit-part actor in Carry On Girls is introduced to us a what passes for an English stud in the days of Slade and three day weeks. He's no loser, the theme song assures us, he just 'doesn't ever win.' Scrubbing windows up and down Merrie England, he looks into a bedroom and sees a badly edited film of some nude girl oiling herself. His work puts him in contact with innumerable clapped out housewives whose 'botties' and 'beezers' are invariably popped out for the benefit of our (possibly clapped up) Cassanova. One wonders if the ever present threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union spurred these women into getting as much 'crumpet' as possible before the real big bang. Anyway, Timmy's brother-in-law, Sid (Tony Booth) is soon to be a father but that doesn't stop him from chasing the skirt. Timmy himself spouts sexist attempts at humour 'What a knocker factory!' with such aplomb, there is a certain weird genius to Askwith's performance. It takes skill to portray a leading character who is such an unbelievably charmless neanderthal. Timmy puts it about but he finds himself falling for the blond Liz (no English Bardot but still light years out of his league) who inevitably takes a dim view of her boyfriend eying up nude school girls and so forth. Elsewhere, casual homophobia and racism make you wonder if the script writers just decided to sit in on a National Front pub quiz. As for the sex...well in the unlikely event of a 40th anniversary DVD in 2014 may I suggest a tag-line? (putting the 'rot' into erotica). But if one thing does make Confessions interesting is that, away from the smut and the crass humour (the likes of which make the Carry Ons look like The Simpsons) Confessions offers a view of 1970s urban England to complete with the angriest Ken Loach movie in terms of its dystopian bleakness. Peeling flock wallpaper and horrid furniture surround Sid and Timmy Lea in their council house while the apartments of some of the 'birds' whose windows they scrub are resplendently ghastly. Maybe there was a surfeit of wild sex to be had in those far off times. Watch this movie and conclude that it was small consolidation.