Perfect Friday

Plot

Mr. Graham, an assistant bank manager who works in the West End of London, is dissatisfied with his boring life.

He meets Lady Britt Dorset, a spendthrift aristocrat. They devise a plan, along with her husband, Lord Nicholas Dorset, to steal £300,000 from the bank.

Their plan is to be enacted on the day that the manager plays golf. It involves Lord Dorset, posing as a bank inspector, substituting counterfeit money for real money which he places in Britt's deposit box.

The scheme almost fails when a real inspector arrives, but a second opportunity arises, and Lady Dorset absconds with the funds.

She fails to show up for the scheduled division of the loot, however, and Graham and Lord Dorset realize that they have been double crossed. Undaunted, they begin to plan another robbery for the following year.

Cast

Production

Dimitri de Grunwald had set up a new production and distribution consortium, the International Film Consortium, a co op of independent film distributors throughout the world. They raised finance for a series of films produced by London Screenplays Ltd - The McMasters, Perfect Friday, The Virgin and the Gypsy, The Last Grenade, and Connecting Rooms. De Grunwald described Perfect Friday's commercial prosects as "safe-ish".

The movie was produced by Stanley Baker who later said of it:

I think he [Peter Hall] will produce film work as interesting as what he's done on the stage... What I like about Perfect Friday is that everybody lies to each other and everybody believes each other's lies. I don't know if the audience realises it, but every time the characters speak to each other, they're lying.

Director Peter Hall said the sex scenes "were meant to make fun of all those sex films that steam up the West End."

Release

Gene Siskel called the film "special entertainment." The New York Times said "Mr. Hall has made an intelligent and quietly funny film about three eccentrics, who are as attractively written as they are played."