cleoew Having caught this recently on TCM, I had actually never heard of this film before. Filmed in the latter 70s and made for TV, it is the story of Jill Cowper, a very educated anthropologist, who encounters an extremely strange plumber named Max. Unsolicited, he somehow appears at her door after Brian, her scientist/nutritionist husband, is away from the apartment (and repeatedly appears at her door when she is alone). Upon first appearance and for several instances following, I couldn't help but laugh at his bizarre antics in the bathroom. From the singing, hooting, hollering, squealing, and singing into the shower head, it was definitely a strange appearance to the woman that let him in. He appears to purposefully break out tiles and mangle the plumbing, so that he can continue to come and "work." Her husband pays quite little attention to the matter as she tries to relay her sincere fears about this disturbed individual. Even her good friend, Meg, seems to brush off what most people would think is a very dangerous situation. Also woven into the story is a clash of social classes. At least from the Max the plumber's viewpoint, who rails on about rich people, capitalism, elitism vs. his quite humble profession and education. One that left him self-conscious about his grammar, among other things. Eventually, Jill transitions from being somewhat friendly in a standoffish fashion, to being fearful and scared, to then becoming annoyed, followed by angry, culminating in her taking matters into her own hands. This is one of those films that abruptly just stops, and I would have wished it ended in a more detailed fashion, but nonetheless, it was well worth the watch. A bit of a thriller, mixed in with quirky humor and a dash of societal commentary.

christopher-underwood Surprisingly, I think this may be the worst film I have ever sat through. It is not a horror film, although I do happen to have a horror of things going wrong with water supplies, so I could have well been made to feel petrified under different circumstances. It is not a thriller because it is so lacking in anything interesting for me to be thrilled about. It is not a comedy because it is not funny. What it is, is a very pretentious waste of an hour and a quarter. Unconvincing is the word here. Of course in almost every film there are moments where you are inclined to scream at the screen to encourage the character to do this or do that to avoid catastrophe. Here the lead does nothing sensible at any point during the whole of the film and the plumber who is very annoying indeed comes off as being not quite as silly as her. As for the ending……I despair!

jse126 When I first heard of this film sometime around 1986 I was employed as a plumber, so I of course I had to see it. I found it in the public library and ended up watching it with my eleven year old sister in law. Twenty years later I have long since stopped making my living as a plumber and my eleven year old sister in law hasn't been my sister-in-law for a decade. But I have a feeling that she still remembers this film because we both had a great time watching it, and we spoke of it for years afterwards.The Plumber is not a big movie. It is a character study filmed in a very small setting. Although I usually see it categorized as either a thriller or as a horror movie, it is neither of those. It is a study of an obviously disturbed plumber who is set off for some reason by Jill Cowper, the tenant in the apartment where he is called to look at the plumbing. I say that he was "set off," because if he did in every apartment what he does in Jill's then he would have been locked up a long time ago. He could not have made a habit of behaving in the manner in which he behaves in the film. Although he really did not harm anyone, he made himself threatening and tore the bathroom apart for no reason - neither of which is conducive to being a satisfactory plumber.I have to say that when I worked as a plumber I was quite competent and I did not wreck people's houses. I did clean work, as much as plumbing can be clean anyway, and I took pride in it. However, I have always had an odd sense of humor, and sometimes I would mess around a bit with the heads of my clients. Nothing mean or scary like our buddy Max in this movie, but funny nonetheless. I can recall one time when I was called out to an apartment that had water dripping into it from the unit above. When I arrived there was a college age girl there, but the water was not presently dripping and the tenants in the apartment above were not home, so I could not go upstairs and investigate. There was not much that I could do about it at the moment. So I started to ask the girl about the problem and she told me that water was sometimes dripping from the light fixture on the ceiling. I looked at her very seriously and asked "was it wet?" She asked me what I meant, and I said "this water - was it wet?" She looked confused and unsure of how to answer. I told her that I needed to know if the water was wet, since I could not go upstairs and see for myself. She continued to look confused and sort of stammered out something like "yeah I guess so" and looked quite baffled, as if she was wondering if there was something more to water than meets the eye that a plumber might need to know about, and what it could be and why she didn't know about it. She had that look about her like she suddenly found herself in an alternate universe, where the simplest things that she took for granted were all of the sudden strange and alien, and nothing made sense. I left soon after and never did tell her that I was messing around - I didn't make any money if I went to a call and couldn't do any work so I suppose that was my payment. I did a lot of things like that, certainly never harming anyone or even being mean but I did leave a lot of confused customers in my wake. Anyway, as a plumber myself, The Plumber was doubly hilarious. Everything about what he did as a plumber was completely absurd. He was there for a very minor problem, yet soon he was carrying in all sorts of supplies that had nothing at all to do with the problem at hand. Cut to later shots of Max the plumber in the bathroom and we see sinks coming off of walls and, most absurdly of all, a full set of scaffolding covering the entire bathroom! That last one is so completely over the top that any plumber could not help but be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Then there was Max's piece de resistance. Cut the the bathroom again, and there is Max, sitting on the toilet with a guitar and one of those harmonicas in a brace that fits around the neck ala Bob Dylan, composing a song that must have been titled "I'm Me, Babe" but we don't know for sure. The whole thing just took the cake right over the top and heaved it over the fence. My sister in law and I sang that song for months afterwards. Think about it - not only is he in there with a guitar and singing when he is supposed to be fixing the plumbing, but he has a neck mounted harmonica too! It's a classic moment, and I don't use the word classic very often.Overall, you don't have to be a plumber to enjoy this movie, but if you are, or even involved in a trade that brings you into people's homes, then the absurdity of the situations in this film will probably hit home a bit harder. And yes, as others have noted, the ending is bit weak; but there are enough "moments" in The Plumber to overcome it. You'll be singing "I'm Me, Baaaaaaabe" long after you've forgotten the ending.

yob14 I found my copy of "The Plumber" at a yard sale. I have this silly habit of renting or buying what appear to be low-budget, very campy, or exploitive features to enjoy a good laugh or perhaps spot a popular celebrity paying their dues in the early days of their career. To those degrees, I was a little disappointed with The Plumber (although the low-budget part appears to be true).I fully expected a "slasher-fest" and screams galore. Instead, The Plumber is about a doctor's wife left alone in the company of an annoying fellow (perhaps a plumber, perhaps not) who proceeds to annoy the hell out of her for the duration of the movie. I agree with the previous reviewer that this theme was duplicated later in "The Cable Guy" with Jim Carey. This bloke is dying for someone to either impress or simply alleviate the loneliness in his life. In the end, we're not sure if he's getting what he deserved or we should feel sorry for him. Indeed, this was a story of psychology, and how we may react in a similar situation.It's possible I may watch this one again one day, but it's not a movie I would keep with my favorites. Still, it's funny, a little creepy, and definitely worth the 50¢ I paid at that yard sale :)