The Sex Thief exists in one of those parallel universes where logic rarely applies and the most scurrilous elements of human nature reign over common sense. It would be easy to chalk that up to the fact that it’s a British sex comedy, but in good sex comedies such nonsense furthers the film’s humorous aims. The nonsense in The Sex Thief contributes only to that familiar sinking feeling: you’re about to sit through another feature film filled with lame puns and penis references – the kind of dreadful lowbrow yukfest that even an abundance of nudity won’t help.
Grant Henry is known to 1970s London as the writer of mildly successful potboilers, but writing must not pay much because Henry spends his nights on the prowl. Depending on how you look at it, he is either the worst jewel thief ever or the best, because he gets caught every time – by the beautiful owner of the jewels. Grant’s carefully selected victims are all gorgeous wealthy women with negligent husbands and the apparent inability to find illicit lovers on their own. Some combination of those facts and Grant’s natural charisma results in a payday for Grant - financially and sexually, as he seduces each woman in turn and she lets him abscond willingly with jewels in tow.
We are asked to believe that Grant’s, er– technique is so advanced that, even though he makes off with a fortune in jewelry, his victims actively protect him after the fact by misleading the police. The cops speculate that a gang of thieves are terrorizing the city; how could one person fake such a variety of different heights, weights, colors, and missing limbs? Grant is so confident in his abilities that he often takes his mask off mid-coitus, and it would appear that his confidence isn’t misplaced. Some of the victims even go out of their way to mention the items of jewelry that the burglar failed to make off with in the hopes of a repeat visit!
The plot does have a vague resolution, but The Sex Thief is in no hurry to get there. Though the story does feature an anxious police detective and the winsome insurance investigator with whom he teams up to trap the burglar, the film is derailed several times by Grant’s live-in girlfriend (and a memorable scene with a “stimulator”), the pair of supporting detectives who seek to profit from confiscated pornography (ah, those heady pre-Internet days!), and a loud-mouthed American actress who, for the purposes of publicity, falsely claims she was robbed and raped by the jewel thief. Each of these tangents is played out with varying degrees of humor (including an amusing drinking sequence between the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern cops that may be the closest approach that The Sex Thief makes to actual comedy), but in the end the picture finds a way to appropriately punish the criminal and give him an (ahem) happy ending.
As vintage sex comedies go, The Sex Thief is hardly the worst film one could pick. The acting is remarkably competent and a quick glance at the filmographies the principal actors will reveal long and varied careers either before or after the picture in question. Director Martin Campbell took his first faltering footsteps as a filmmaker with this movie but went on to generate an impressive roster of pictures, including the most stunning Bond film in a decade, Casino Royale. The ladies who grace the screen for our voyeuristic benefit are welcome enough even if they ham it up a bit after they disrobe. (Naked ballet?)
Where the film really fails to please is in the script, which is hardly surprising given the traditions of the sub-genre but annoying nonetheless. The lack of focus makes for a meandering movie and if the audience were truly only interested in titillation they would have gone straight for porn to begin with. Particularly egregious are scenes like the tedious bit of komedy in the men’s club, where Grant comes face to face with the husbands of his nightly conquests — even more onerous in that this scene leads to one of energetic lovemaking intercut with combat between a pair of portly wrestlers.
Sadly, few of the remaining sex scenes are much more arousing. Peppered with vapid dialogue (”This is madness! You’re a handsome burglar and I’m an unhappily married woman!”) and executed with the tender grace of a cross-eyed elephant on a lop-sided skateboard, the boinking scenes in this movie are all of the sort of frantically acrobatic screen sex that makes you wonder if any of the actors have actually ever made love. Twelve year-old grade schoolers could simulate the act more convincingly, but since we’re not watching grade schoolers we’re doomed to the Benny Hill version of the act of copulation. The aforementioned “stimulator” scene is the only exception to this, but it’s the only true gem in the film — and naturally, the only sex scene unrelated to the film’s central concept.
Though The Sex Thief is ultimately too hokey to recommend seriously, it might make good filler in the background at a party. Be sure to drop Martin Campbell’s name in reference to Casino Royale where appropriate. Several years later the film was re-released as Handful of Diamonds with new x-rated scenes using body doubles for the original actors, but I doubt that version is much sexier. Or funnier.
