The Helping Hands agency employs some very strange people to perform some very strange jobs. Even the simplest of tasks get bungled by the incompetent but lovable staff.
The Helping Hands agency employs some very strange people to perform some very strange jobs! Even the simplest of tasks get bungled by the incompetent but lovable staff, as they get given jobs ranging from taking animals for walks (no ordinary animals you understand) to demonstrating new products at a large and prestigious exhibition...—Simon N. McIntosh-Smith <[email protected]>
Bert Handy is able to open Helping Hands, a service agency, unexpectedly on schedule with a last minute flurry of seven job applicants looking to do a variety of interesting work, they who he hires en masse. Bert and the seven who are sent on the service calls by the elderly office manager, Miss Cooling, get into one misadventure after another due to the nature of the calls, some of the work not being quite what they expect, some disorganization, some confusion, some misunderstanding, and/or more often than not pure ineptitude on their part. But when the agency is in jeopardy of closing for no fault of their own, they may face their biggest service challenge, completing the work to the client's satisfaction which may mean staying open or closing for good.—Huggo
Down at the local labor exchange, everyone is moaning about the lack of decent jobs, unaware that nearby Bert Handy (Sid James) and his secretary Miss Cooling (Esma Cannon) are attempting to fill vacancies, at a new enterprise called Helping Hands. The company aims to provide any and all services for all their customers. Bert was contemplating delaying the opening of his business as there were no applicants for the job advertisement he had placed in the local newspaper.
When word gets round (after they see one job aspirant running out of the exchange after reading the morning newspaper), people are quick to visit the agency, notably Sam Twist (Kenneth Connor), Francis Courtenay (Kenneth Williams), Delia King (Liz Fraser), Gabriel Dimple (Charles Hawtrey), Lily Duveen (Joan Sims), Mike Weston (Bill Owen) and Montgomery Infield-Hopping (Terence Longdon).All the aspirants were desperate for a job and had been hounding the exchange for several weeks.
Bert decides to hire them all (as 7 is his lucky number) and at first business is slow. The only customer is a man who speaks gobbledygook but since Francis (who can speak 16 languages) isn't present nobody can understand him, and he goes on his way.Within a few days business picks up and Delia has an assignment to try on a complete women's wardrobe for Mr Delling (Jimmy Thompson), a gentleman who is planning a surprise for his wife. Delling wanted a female helping hand with exactly the right measurements, which Delia had. Delling has Delia try out various pieces of lingerie, night-wear & evening gowns at his house. However, things get complicated when the man's wife Helen arrives home unexpectedly. Delling asks Delia to hide in the closet. Helen insists to hang her coat in the closet, and in the meantime, Delia dresses up in Delling's clothes and his hat. She emerges out of the closet pretending to be a handyman, who had been asked by Mr Delling to give him an estimate for a new closet.
Meanwhile Sam Twist is sent to a baby-sitting job, only to find that there isn't a baby to be sat, instead there is Mrs Panting (Fenella Fielding), a woman who needs to make her husband jealous. Mrs Panting complains that her husband ignores her and doesn't find her attractive anymore. Mrs Panting forces Sam into her bedroom and into her bed, when Mr Panting walks in with Sam's pants down by his ankles. Sam succeeds and in the process with ends up getting a black eye.
The following day, Francis is assigned to take a pet for a walk but when he gets to the owner's house, he finds out it's a chimpanzee. He takes the chimp for a walk and soon discovers that people who work in the transport industry have an aversion to apes. The chimp is not allowed on any public transport and the taxis refuses to take the chimp either.They eventually end up at a chimp's tea party at the zoo, enjoying a nice afternoon tea.
Next is Lily Duveen, who has been employed at a wine tasting evening, to collect invitation cards from the attendees. After she has performed this task, she samples some of the wines and makes a bit of a spectacle of herself. Lily gets very drunk and stumbles around the room, knocking into other guests at the event.
Later a man from Amalgamated Scrap-Iron arrives in the Helping Hands office. He's obviously busy as he requests that someone take his place in the queue, at the hospital outpatients department. Bert says he will get someone on the case, but the chap insists that the top man does the job himself, so Bert ends up queuing at the hospital where he is mistaken for an eminent diagnostician.
The next job that Francis undertakes, is in the field of photography as a model. Obviously very chuffed that he has been chosen, he is crestfallen when he discovers that the job is an advertisement for a bee-keeper's helmet.His next job is between a bickering couple. The husband can't understand his wife, who continually berates him in her native German. Thanks to Francis getting a bit emotionally involved, the wife starts speaking English and the couple make up.
Lefty Vincent (Freddie Mills), a boxing friend of Bert's, pops into the office. He requires four helpers to act as seconds, for his fighter Dynamite Dan. When they get to the venue, Dan is terrified by his opponent, Mickey McGee, so pretends that he has sprained his finger. The fight is off until Gabriel takes on McGee instead.
Sam is excited over his next job. Due to a mix-up, he thinks he is on a secret spying mission to the Forth Bridge, when all that is required of him is to make up a fourth in a game of bridge. Returning, Sam learns that the whole of Helping Hand has been engaged to demonstrate exhibits at the Ideal House Exhibition. All of the demonstrations end in calamity.Sam's next job is at an exclusive men's club, where no matter how hard he tries he can't keep silent, which is a strict rule of the establishment.
Miss Cooling decides on a new filing system, for a more streamlined operation and job cards are put in proper holes for each of the workers. Disaster strikes when the cleaner knocks the box down and puts the cards back all mixed up. Everyone gets someone else's assignment, with misunderstandings all round.
Finally, the gobbledygook man turns up again and this time Francis is there to translate. He is their landlord ("Professor" Stanley Unwin) and has been trying to inform Bert that he will have to vacate the premises, because he's had a better offer.
Due to a show of unity by all the staff, the landlord agrees that they can stay, on the provision that they do something for him. His main interest is property development, and he needs a house cleared and cleaned. Unfortunately, the team end up demolishing the house but thankfully it turns out that it needed demolishing for a block of flats anyway, so all ends well.
