Synopsis
Don't tell our beloved Queen Victoria, but prostitutes throng the streets of London, blocking access to tradesmen's shops. What to do? Her Majesty's Home Secretary has an idea: open an opulent government-run brothel and sweep the competition off the thoroughfares. Filmed with a naughty wink-wink during the Swinging Sixties, this spirited romp sets reformers, rakes and officials colliding and colluding in a buoyant plot that starts with a brawl at a League of Social Purity march and ends in a brothel housed in a Jules Verne-esque airship. Along the way, portrayals of Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dr. David Livingston, Lord Tennyson and more Victorian luminaries add to the fun. David Hemmings (Blow-Up) plays dual roles: an earnest supporter of a home for wayward girls and the scheming manager of the official brothel. And George Sanders (All About Eve) is perfectly pompous as an aging roue.