Plot

The movie is a farce about a mentally unstable advertising executive, Denis Dimbleby Bagley (played by Grant), who suffers a nervous breakdown while making an advert for pimple cream.

Ward plays his long-suffering but sympathetic wife. Richard Wilson plays John Bristol, Bagley’s boss.

Bagley has a crisis of conscience about the ethics of advertising, which leads to mania.

He then develops a boil on his right shoulder that comes to life with a face and voice.

The voice of the boil, although uncredited, is that of Bruce Robinson. The boil takes a cynical and unscrupulous view of the advertising profession in contrast to Bagley’s new-found ethical concerns.

Eventually, Bagley decides to have the boil removed in hospital but moments before he is taken into the operating room, the boil quickly grows into a replica of Bagley’s head (only with a moustache) and covers Bagley’s original head, asking doctors to lance it, which is done since nobody has noticed the switch from left to right nor the new moustache.

Bagley, now with the boil head, moustache, and personality (the movie’s third personification from Grant after the stressed executive and the raving lunatic) returns home to celebrate his wedding anniversary, with the original head merely resembling a boil on his left shoulder.

The “boil” eventually withers but doesn’t die, yet Bagley resumes his advertising career rejuvenated and ruthless, although without his wife, who decides to leave his new cruel persona.

Plot

The film takes place in the 1950s in the suburbs of London. The film depicts the hypocritically prudish residents of a seemingly respectable household who, behind closed doors, indulge in the sort of sordid goings on they would publicly sneer at.

Marjorie Beaslie (Walters) is a housewife in her forties who takes in a lodger named Harold Guppey (Graves), who has just stumbled into town to look up his long-lost brother (played by Les Dennis).

Although seemingly prudish (she no longer sleeps in the same bed as her husband, for “medical reasons”), Marjorie takes a liking to Harold despite him being a good twenty years her junior.

They begin to have a clandestine affair, sneaking into bed together at night. Ever since taking in her lodger, Marjorie insists that Harold refer to her as “mum”, giving more than a little oedipal slant to their subsequent lustful antics.

Marjorie’s youngest daughter is fourteen-year-old Joyce (Sadler), a precocious, Loltia-like girl who alternates between trying to act grown up by putting on make-up and smoking cigarettes, and acting childish by grossing people out with tales of medieval punishments and giggling at rude words.

Plot

Lonely spinster Judith Hearne (Maggie Smith) teaches piano and lives in a depressing boarding house in Dublin.

Her life changes when she meets James Madden (Bob Hoskins), the enterprising brother of the owner.

She quickly falls for him and, against all expectation, finds her love returned.

As their romance develops, Judith becomes truly happy for the first time in her life.

But, when it dawns on her that James has ulterior motives for pursuing their relationship, her world comes crashing down.

Plot

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), an old-fashioned London gangster is aspiring to become a legitimate businessman, albeit with the financial support of the American mafia, with a plan to redevelop the (then-abandoned) London Docklands as a venue for a future Olympic Games.

The storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including low-level political and police corruption, IRA gun-running, displacement of traditional British industry by property development, UK membership of the EEC, and the free-market economy.

Harold is the ruling kingpin of the London underworld, when his world is suddenly torn apart by a series of murders and exploding bombs from an unseen foe.

He and his henchmen try to uncover his attackers’ identity. His ruthless and violent pursuit of leads only points out the small-time tawdriness of the organisation he hopes to legitimise.

He discovers his closest aide accidentally became involved with the IRA in a side-job gone wrong, and stole £5000 from the IRA, as well as killing several IRA men – for which the IRA holds Harold responsible.

He acts on the information with the same brutality that first took him to the pinnacle of the London underworld. He eventually approaches the local IRA members he suspects of orchestrating the violence against him.

He offers to pay them back their money, but then double crosses them while they are counting the money, and his henchmen kill them. He also meets up with the American mafia representatives, led by Charlie (Eddie Constantine).

However, they have already decided to leave England because of all the recent chaos.

When Harold leaves their hotel, he gets into his car, which he thinks is being driven by his chauffeur but has been taken over by two IRA men. As the car speeds away Harold is silent, but his face displays a range of emotions.

Plot

Church of England Reverend Charles Fortescue (Palin) works as a missionary in Africa for ten years, then returns to England in the spring of 1906.

As the ship docks, a fellow passenger, later identified as Lady Isabel Ames (Smith), bumps into him by accident.

Charles is to wed Deborah Fitzbanks, the daughter of a fellow clergyman. She was only a child when he left, but is now a young woman eager to be married and have lots of children; however, she dislikes being touched by him.

The Bishop of London gives him a new assignment, to set up a mission to rescue the women of the evening who frequent the London Docklands, but cannot offer him any funding.

To assist him, Deborah writes to Lord Ames, the richest man in England. Charles reluctantly calls at their enormous mansion. The place has so many rooms, Slatterthwaite, the longtime butler, constantly has trouble finding his way about. He does eventually manage to bring Charles to the Ameses.

Lord Ames loathes missionaries (among other things), but Lady Ames is inclined to contribute, especially as she finds him attractive (and tells him so).

Somewhat alarmed, Charles tries to leave, but she insists he spend the night.