Malone had met Helga previously and discovers she was a high class prostitute who was also a mistress of the Minister for Culture (James Workman) and involved with film director Jack Savannah (Joe Martin).

In flashback it is shown that Helga was blackmailing the minister and his wife (Jacqueline Kott), along with a crime boss, Mr Sin (Noel Ferrier).

[6] The film rights to Helga's Web were originally purchased by Brian Chirlian and John Shore, who hired Cleary to write a screenplay.

Casey Robinson, a famous Hollywood screenwriter who had retired to Sydney three years earlier with his Australian wife Joan, then became involved as producer.

Some key changes were made from the book - notably turning Scobie Malone into a womaniser who lives in a singles-only apartment block and has sex with a large number of women, including air hostesses whose name he can't remember.

Scobie as Jack Thompson plays him in the film lives in a singles apartment building with a swimming pool and a lot of topless neighbors and has air hostesses for breakfast.

"[2] The movie was one of nine the AFDC financed in 1975, others being Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Man From Hong Kong, Sunday Too Far Away', The Devil's Playground, The Trespassers, The Box and A Salute To The Great McCarthy.

[1] John Shaw, associate producer and production supervisor at Kingcroft, said "It is very much a modern day story set in Sydney now - it's Australian.

[8] The movie received poor reviews and did badly at the box office, despite Jack Thompson coming off two hits with Petersen (1974) and Sunday Too Far Away (1975).

Bennett felt Thompson "makes his usual workmanlike attempt" and "he gets least help of all from a camera which, when not staring flatly at brightly lit sets and characters, seems most concerned with Sydney traveloguing.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re worse than anyone else in the film...the script... makes an extremely desperate and embarrassingly thread-bare effort to substitute comedy for action... a mine of sexual cliches...Helga’s Web was probably not easy to adapt.

"[9] The Sydney Morning Herald wrote "the Opera House is more exciting than the plot...the actor's skills disguise the triteness of the roles...

The film is desultory, frequently ludicrous and somewhat desperately beefed up with the introduction of dozens of naked ladies, all eyeing Mr Thompson lasciviously.