The poster for the final film in the series, Confessions from a Holiday Camp.
Often nicknamed the Ur-Example of Awful British Sex Comedies, the Confessions of a... series were a 1970s quadrilliogy about the misadventures of Timothy Lea, which are based on the supposed novel accounts by the character himself (actually written by frequent sex comedy author Christopher Wood).
Timmy (portrayed by Robin Askwith throughout the series) is a lovable loser still living at home with his dad, Walter (Bill Maynard), and mum (Dandy Nichols, then Doris Hare) that seems to be in the right place at the right time. Married to his sister, Rosie (Sheila White), is Sid Noggett (Anthony Booth), who sets Timmy up with various jobs throughout the series, and successfully has his way with several of his female clients. And that's all you need to know.
The series was really popular with British audiences, although very low-budgeted as a whole, and often beat out many blockbuster films that were released at the time — much to many critics' disgust. Confessions is perhaps the most successful British sex film series of all time, and spawned several movie expies, such as the very popular Adventures of... series that was released a year after the first film.
The movies series consists of:
- Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) — Tim becomes a window cleaner, with the help of Sid, and is told to work until he fully "satisfies" all his customers. Somehow, this leads to Tim gaining an active sex life with many of the housewives he works for, including a lesbian, because they believe that that was what he was also visiting them for.
- Confessions of a Pop Performer (1975) — Sid decides to be the manager of a new rock band he overhears playing in a pub. Timmy eventually becomes a member and is the attraction of many fangirls, despite not having much talent other than window cleaning.
- Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976) — Sid and Tim have successfully set up a driving school, but a rival school nearby is having none of it. They decide on a rugby match between the employees.
- Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977) — Sid and Tim work at a holiday camp, that's home to lazy workers that sit around the pool a lot, until a new owner appears and terrorizes everyone, so Tim suggests that a beauty contest should take place to keep the holiday camp civil.
There wasn't going to be officially only four films in the franchise. After Holiday Camp, there were plans to make a fifth and sixth movie, but there were massive complications behind the scenes and even rumours of script plagiarism, so the distributing company dismissed the series a couple of months into the production of the fifth movies.
Today, the Confessions series has mixed reviews among the British public. Many have fond memories of the movies because they "summed up the decade" and its "innocence", whereas others (particularly many film critics) criticized its cheap-ness and lack of plot — often calling it the lowest point of British cinema.
Still, it's a guilty pleasure for many, regardless of what they think.
Tropes:
- The '70s: Especially around the time of the British media sexual revolution within the mid-1970s.
- Accidental Pornomancer: Tim seems unable to avoid sex, even if he isn't actively seeking it in the first place.
- All Women Are Lustful: The women in Window Cleaner for definite, who probably hired Tim for sex after working in the first place. Most of the women in the other films count too, as a number of them are married or in relationships for starters.
- All Men Are Perverts: Not necessarily. In Tim's case, he just ends up in sexual situations with many women that he meets, when he really just wants to do his job.
- Auto Erotica: In Confessions of a Driving Instructor naturally, though not as often as you'd think. Timmy learns early on that having sex in a car is pretty awkward.
- Based on a Great Big Lie: The films were based on a long series of True Confessions of Timothy Lea books available from cheap paperback racks, all supposedly written by Lea himself as true accounts of his adventures (actually by Christopher Wood, who also wrote the screenplays, and whose Wikipedia bibliography actually specifies "excluding pseudonymous humorous erotica"). Wood was also responsible for the equally fictional True Confessons of Rosie Dixon books, the first of which was adapted into the film Rosie Dixon – Night Nurse.
- Beauty Contest: This forms the crux of the "plot" in Confessions From A Holiday Cam as Timmy enlists women to participate in the beauty contest organized by the new camp owner. Since Timmy is a judge, the contestants unsurprisingly try to seduce him to ensure they win the contest.
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: Basically a given in this genre. Sometimes Timmy manages to escape before he's detected. Other times he's not so lucky.
- Censor Suds: In Window Cleaner, a housewife's room becomes covered in soap as she makes out with Tim on the floor. The suds don't do any censoring though.
- Cheating with the Milkman: Or Window Cleaner as is the case in the first film. Sid has at least one horny customer who regularly requests his "services" and hooks her up with Timmy to get him laid.
- Continuity Nod: At the beginning of Pop Performer, Sid and Tim are working as window cleaners, carrying on from the previous film being Window Cleaner.
- Cool Big Bro: Sid comes of as this, considering how he's always getting his brother-in-law a job, and is often working alongside him.
- Destructo-Nookie: In Driving Instructor, Timmy and Avril have such wild sex that it breaks his bed. In Pop Performer he has sex with a random shopkeep that basically destroys her store.
- Double Entendre: Enough that's worthy of a Carry On film. Throughout Holiday Camp Timmy tells women he wants to enter them. ...Into the beauty contest, of course.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: In Holiday Camp, Mr Whitemonk takes over and bosses his staff about like he's still a prison officer.
- Erotic Eating: Timmy can't help but stare at Avril Chalmers eating an éclair this way. Then he notices her mother doing something similar with a utensil...
- Fanservice: The films are full of attractive women to please the film's mostly-male audience.
- I Banged Your Mom: Timmy has sex with both Avril and her mother in Driving Instructor.
- Instant Seduction: Timmy seemingly has this ability even though he's often not trying to.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Almost always the husband/boyfriend of the woman Timmy is with.
- Is This Thing Still On?: Timmy has sex with the camp DJ in Holiday Camp while the mic is on, broadcasting his sex with her to the entire camp.
- Last-Name Basis: Tim's parents are just known as Mr and Mrs Lea.
- Lover's Ledge: Timmy attempts to have sex with a married woman in Pop Performer but has to escape this way when her husband comes home and suspects something's up.
- A Man Is Always Eager: Zigzagged with Timmy, but definitely played straight with Sid.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Because the sex is often spontaneous, Timmy usually ends up doing it in public places rather than in the bedroom, including on a golf course.
- Marshmallow Hell: In Pop Performer, Timmy accidentally stumbles into the dressing room of an attractive dancer. During the tryst that follows, he gets his face planted between her bare breasts.
- Meaningful Name: Hilariously subverted in Driving Instructor. Sid is informed that they have two customers on deck, the mundane-sounding Mrs. Hargreaves and the more tantalizing name of Ms. Slenderparts. Sid jumps at the chance to take a spin with the latter only to find out that she's a woman about twice his age that he wouldn't touch with a forty foot pole. Mrs. Hargreaves on the other hand...
- Mrs. Robinson: Mrs. Chalmers has shades of this, though it's implied by her daughter that she just slept around a lot.
- Naked People Trapped Outside: Timmy has this happen to him twice in Holiday Camp, and he's labelled a streaker as a result.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: The movies in a nutshell, with Tim (and Sid) frequently changing jobs for the sake of setting up the plot.
- No Name Given: The married woman that Timmy has sex with in the sauna in Holiday Camp is only known as "Married Woman".
- Pain to the Ass: In Pop Performer and Holiday Camp, Timmy accidentally backs his bare backside into something really hot.
- Pizza Boy Special Delivery: It's all but stated a number of women hire Timmy for sex rather than the actual service he's supposed to provide.
- Porn with Plot: The films are basically softcore pornography, but were really popular with British audiences, perhaps because besides that audiences also found them funny.
- Really Gets Around: Both Timmy and Sid sleep with numerous women, though in the former's case, he's usually not trying.
- Right Through the Wall: Timmy has rather loud sex with a woman in Confessions from a Holiday Camp, though he tries to keep her silent because he knows his brother-in-law is right next door. He fails to keep her quiet of course, much to Sid's chagrin. Later on in the movie he has sex with the camp DJ while she has the mic on, broadcasting his sex all over the camp. He's actually met with applause when he's revealed.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Technically in Pop Performer; Tim and Sid become the managers of a local band before Tim joins their line-up, and he does indeed soon adopt a hedonistic lifestyle, but given the film series' theme, it's more sex than anything.
- Sex for Services: The women offering themselves to Tim in Window Cleaner do so as reward for his job as a window cleaner, although it's also implied that they hired Tim for sex after working in the first place.
- Shout-Out:
- Tim's father is a kleptomaniac, much like Albert Steptoe.
- Tim's mother is a shopaholic, much like Mrs Butler.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Tim spends Window Cleaner trying to get with no-nonsense policewoman Elizabeth Radlett.
- Sleeping with the Boss's Wife: Inverted in Holiday Camp. Mrs. Whitemonk tries to have sex with Timmy twice but the latter refuses since she's... well, his boss' wife.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: Many believe that the characters of the series derived from this trope. The working class, in particular, are depicted as thieving and sex-hungry, whereas the middle class seem to be really nice people and very successful.
- Something We Forgot: Timmy is filling a beach toy with air in a shed when Brigitte spots him and seduces him into having sex with her. Unfortunately for the both of them, Timmy realizes before too long that he forgot about the beach toy and it grows so large it bursts and blows him out of the shed... with no clothes on.
- STD Immunity: Timmy has sex with numerous women but nothing ever happens because of it, not even pregnancy.
- Summer Campy: Holiday Camp, as the name implies, revolves around hijinks in a typical British holiday camp.
- Thanks for the Mammary: Timmy gets a handful of Avril Chalmers... and her mother. Neither seem too upset...
- Those Two Guys: Tim and brother-in-law Sid, who usually work in the same jobs every movie.
- Wall Bang Her: Timmy has sex with a married woman in Holiday Camp this way in a sauna, though the second he moves away from the wall, his butt hits the hot coals...
- Wardrobe Malfunction: Timmy accidentally removes a woman's bikini top while reaching for her cigarettes.
- You Need to Get Laid: Sid all but states that Timmy is a virgin in the first movie and needs to "have some fun". He takes him to a stripper then when that fails a rather horny client of his window washing service who succeeds.
