| budget = £300,000[http://find.galegroup.com/stha/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=STHA&userGroupName=slnsw_public&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=FP1800820471&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 Blundy, David. "Ooh, you are awful, film men tell Tories." Sunday Times [London, England] 16 Dec. 1973: 5. The Sunday Times Digital Archive.] Web. 29 Mar. 2014.{{Cite book|page=102|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQZ0DwAAQBAJ&q=%22emi+films+and+the+limits+of+british+cinema%22&pg=PA1|title=EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema|first=Paul|last= Moody|publisher=Springer|date= Oct 19, 2018|isbn = 9783319948034}}

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Percy is a 1971 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas starring Hywel Bennett, Denholm Elliott, Elke Sommer and Britt Ekland.{{Cite web |title=Percy |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150041886 |access-date=10 August 2024 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}

The film is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Raymond Hitchcock, and features a soundtrack by The Kinks. It was followed by a 1974 sequel, Percy's Progress.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-four-cohen-vs-bryan-forbes-1969-71/|magazine=Filmink|access-date=24 January 2025|date=24 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|title=Forgotten British Moguls – Nat Cohen Part Four: Cohen vs Bryan Forbes (1969-71)}}

Plot

Edwin Anthony is an innocent and shy young man who is hit by a nude man falling from a high-rise building while carrying a chandelier. Edwin's penis is mutilated in the accident and has to be amputated; the falling man is killed.

Edwin becomes the recipient of the world's first penis transplant: he receives the very large penis of the womanizer killed in the same accident. With his new bit of anatomy (which he names "Percy"), Edwin follows the womanizer's footsteps, meeting all his women friends, before settling happily with the donor's mistreated widow.

Cast

{{cast listing|

Hywel Bennett as Edwin Anthony
Denholm Elliott as Emmanuel Whitbread
Elke Sommer as Helga
Britt Ekland as Dorothy Chiltern-Barlow
Cyd Hayman as Moira Warrington
Janet Key as Hazel Anthony
Tracey Crisp as Miss Elder
Antonia Ellis as Rita La Rousse
Tracy Reed as Mrs. Penney
Patrick Mower as James Vaile
Pauline Delaney as Sister Flanagan
Adrienne Posta as Maggie Hyde
Julia Foster as Marilyn
Sheila Steafel as Mrs. Gold
Arthur English as Pub Comic
Angus MacKay as TV producer
Rita Webb as Mrs. Hedges
Charles Hodgson as TV interviewer
Sue Lloyd as Bernice
Denise Coffey as Operator #1
Edward Malin as Elderly patient
Margaretta Scott as Rita's Mother
Graham Crowden as Alfred Spaulton
T. P. McKenna as Meet the People Compere
Tony Haygarth as Purdey
Jane Carr as Nurse
Ronnie Brody as Reporter
Penny Brahms as Football Spectator
George Best as himself

}}

Production

Producer Betty E. Box discovered the novel when she and director Ralph Thomas were meeting a publisher about optioning the film rights for another book. They were not available at the time, but the publisher gave them a manuscript by Raymond Hitchcock about a penis transplant. Box took it back to the office to read. "I zipped through it, laughing aloud as I read", she wrote. "Very unusual. I might sometimes smile at a book, but I hadn't laughed like this since I read Richard Gordon's Doctor in the House."Box p 270

Ralph Thomas enjoyed the book too so they decided to option the rights. These ended up costing four times more than Box originally thought after Hichcock had his own agent, as opposed to the publisher, do the negotiations. Box p 270 Box and Thomas paid for the rights themselves "not without a fair amount of heart-searching", Box wrote, "as we didn't expect it to be a straightforward financing operation – with the amount required to make a film it seldom is – but this was certainly not a subject I expected Rank, our traditional partners, to finance. They very soon turned it down without even reading it."Box p 272

In June 1969 it was announced Box had bought the rights for £30,000 (the novel was not published until November). "I know people are saying this is the film that cannot be made," said Box. "But we have already thrashed out a makeshift formula... It will be a comedy film with sex, not a sex film... We are only dealing with something that every man has."{{cite news|newspaper=Sunday Mirror|date=22 June 1969|page=7|title=Percy's sex hunt is all a joke}} "This is a tale of exploration," said Ralph Thomas.{{cite news|newspaper=Daily Record|date=8 July 1970|page=12|title=A bleep called Percy}}

Finance was obtained from Nat Cohen at EMI Films - they provided the entire budget.{{Cite book|page=85|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQZ0DwAAQBAJ&q=%22emi+films+and+the+limits+of+british+cinema%22&pg=PA1|title=EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema|first=Paul|last= Moody|publisher=Springer|date= Oct 19, 2018|isbn = 9783319948034}} The poster was designed by John Troke, a publicist who had introduced Box to the book of Doctor in the House 15 years earlier. A script was prepared by Hugh Leonard while Thomas and Box filmed Doctor in Trouble.

"Five years ago I doubt we could have gotten away with it," said Box. "But today it is time we made the human male organ a subject for open, straightforward conversation. I mean, really it is a thing that has been sacred too long."{{cite news|newspaper=The Sunday People|date=6 September 1970|page=8|title=Bett's new film with a difference}}

The script was rewritten by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. They met with Thomas and Box at Pinewood in May 1970 and rewrote the script that month.{{cite book|page=23,29|url=https://archive.org/details/diaries19691979p2006pali/page/24/mode/1up?|first=Michael|last=Palin|year=2006|title=Diaries 1969-1979 : the Python years}}

The film was shot in June 1970 being finished by September. It took place at Elstree Studios and on location in London. The film's sets were designed by the art director Robert Jones. Ray Davies of The Kinks wrote the film's soundtrack Percy.

"I realise this is an adult film," said Box, "but I do insist that it is not a sexy one."

During the making of the film, another comedy about a penis was being shot, The Statue. Box always regarded this as a rip off.Box p 276

Box says that Raymond Hitchcock was delighted with the film and thought Hywel Bennett was very close to his original James Anthony.

Thomas and Box agreed to make a sequel provided Nat Cohen finance a film they wanted to make about the Byron-Shelley story, The Reckless Years. However Cohen reneged on the deal and only made the sequel.Box p 281

Release

The film was not screened in Australia until the "R" certificate was introduced.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110667533 |title=Comedy film awaits the 'R'. |newspaper=The Canberra Times |date=14 July 1971 |access-date=17 December 2015 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Reception

= Critical =

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The advertising campaign which paved the way for Percy by inviting us to guess its length seemed reprehensible enough but was still inadequate preparation for the unadulterated salacity of the film itself. Edwin's first waking vision of the Post Office Tower sets the tone for a fusillade of barrack-room humour that repeats and twists practically every joke ever made about male genitalia, then caps this by having comedian Arthur English stand up and recite what would appear to be an anthology of the gags that didn't make the grade for the scenario. Depressing enough when it forms the mainstay of the hospital situation comedy, this monotonous level of wit becomes still more wearying as an attempt to enliven Edwin's apparently pointless quest for his donor. Director Ralph Thomas never misses an opportunity to leer at an undraped statue or the phallic objects that litter the sets and tower from the hoardings, though he does find time to make reproving digs at the amorality of television and the tabloid press. In the face of such banality, accomplished performers like Denholm Elliott and Adrienne Posta just fall by the wayside, although Cyd Hayman as the melancholy widow manages to make the best of things."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1971 |title=Percy |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305826949/F9395D60E9644041PQ/1 |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=38 |issue=444 |pages=56 |via=ProQuest}}

=Box office=

Percy was the 8th most popular film at the British box office in 1971.Peter Waymark. "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas." Times [London, England] 30 Dec. 1971: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 11 July 2012. By June 1972, it had earned EMI a profit of £43,000.{{Cite book|page=83|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQZ0DwAAQBAJ&q=%22emi+films+and+the+limits+of+british+cinema%22&pg=PA1|title=EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema|first=Paul|last= Moody|publisher=Springer|date= Oct 19, 2018|isbn = 9783319948034}} Eventually, according to Nat Cohen, it made a profit of £500,000.