PERCY (1971)
Article 2677 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-26-2008
Posting Date: 12-11-2008
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Featuring Hywel Bennett, Denholm Elliott, Elke Sommer
Country: UK

A man becomes the recipient of the first penis transplant in history, and becomes obsessed with finding the donor.

I have to admit that this movie surprised me. It’s not because it’s good, mind you (it’s so-so at best), but rather, it’s because it actually does aspire to be something more than an exploitation piece (which is something I can’t say about THE AMAZING TRANSPLANT, which deals with the same subject matter). I initially thought it odd that the theme song for this movie was the plaintive “God’s Children”; if I remember correctly, they wanted Ray Davies to write a funny song about transplants and instead got this gentle anti-transplant song instead. However, it almost seems that the movie takes the song’s lead; in the end, the attention, the fame, and the women does nothing for our hero, as he ends up believing in the value of a single monogamous relationship. In short, the movie has an unexpected serious side. Still, the movie is fairly weak; most of the laughs consist of repetitive double entendres, and the pace is quite sluggish at times. Still, I do have a bit of fondness for the music by the Kinks that appears on the soundtrack, and I’m sure any fan of their music will recognize the melody that is used for the background music during the sequence when the transplant is “tested” for the first time.