Life changes come in pairs for fashion writer Freddie Horne (David Kernan, Carry on Abroad). Not only is he engaged to the gorgeous Rosalie (Andrea Allan, The House That Vanished), but starts a new gig working for a publisher of religious magazines — or so he thinks! Turns out, the godly rags are a mere front for its true cash cow: a nudie-cutie mag For Men Only!
Freddie gets tricked into visiting this film’s version of the Playboy Mansion, where the Hefner-inspired Fanthorpe (Derek Aylward, Come Play with Me) surrounds him with temptation in the form of giggling, bikini-clad “birds” (as the credits call them). If you think the story contrives to get Rosalie to Fanthorpe’s pad, writer/director Pete Walker has a real table-turner in store! I lied; Walker clearly missed his true calling as a scenarioist for Three’s Company.
Before a career helming horror films (House of Whipcord, House on the Long Shadows and movies with non-abode titles), Walker cut his UK choppers on nearly two dozen slapsticky slap-and-tickle shorts, of which For Men Only was his penultimate. Especially when the sound mix is as weak as it is here, turns out 40 minutes is just the proper length (yeah, I said it) for this sort of thing — you know, sex comedies with lines like “C’mon, darling, it wasn’t like I ripped her dress off on purpose!”
Its one surprise is quite a shocker: There’s no nudity, unless you count the top half of a butt crack. (At age 15, I might have; at age 50, I do not.) For Men Only is quite the tease, but that’s the way I like it. —Rod Lott