Caper

Mr Graham (Stanley Baker) has a problem. Or rather two problems. The first is that he looks like a John Cleese impersonator who got lost on his way to the Ministry of Silly Walks.

The second is that he is bored out of his mind by his job as an assistant bank manager. In order to get out of the tedious life his career seems to be guaranteeing, Mr Graham comes up with a plan to rob the bank of all its money - the princely sum of 300,000 pounds.

Apparently in 1970 that was enough money to keep you in luxury for the rest of your life... or so they thought before rampant inflation kicked in around the mid-70s. By 1980 it barely enough money to keep you in poverty, let alone luxury. But Mr Graham isn't to know that, so he hones his plan and dreams of a better life.

His dreams are answered, as a red blooded man's dreams are wont to be, in the form of Ursula Andress, here playing the irresponsible yet vivacious Lady Britt Dorset. After determining that she is the sort of feisty, loose-moralled woman his plan needs, he asks her if she wants in. She responds as only Ursula can.

But the plan needs a third, so they enlist Britt's husband, Lord Dorset, who is just as profligate and wanton as his wife. Together they work out the intricate plan for robbing the bank, with Mr Graham and Britt planning to ditch her husband at the first opportunity. But these things never go according to plan.

'Perfect Friday' is a classic British caper film, with amoral characters who seem charming now but must have been rather scandalous and cynical in 1970. It's only a little over forty years ago, but it was an entirely different world. It was a time of businessmen in bowler hats and Ursula Andresses in Sunbeam Alpines, and also the time of the bewildering hell that was 1970s office design.

Sweet merciful crap. It's like a psychological experiment designed by the French. No wonder Mr Graham was a little unstable.

But we don't watch AndressFest movies for inconsequentialities like set design and plot. We watch them for Ursula, and in 'Perfect Friday' she was at her sexy, seductive best. Well... perhaps not her best. Although she was lovely, she was always a little out of her depth with comedy. Ursula was at her most seductive in roles which took the business of seduction with the utmost seriousness. In Perfect Friday, the seduction is fun, not hot. And so Ursula was beautiful but not, well, perfect.

Still, it was an amusing little film, and if the assembled AndressFesters wanted more of Ursula doing what she does best, there was plenty still to come in AndressFest'13.