True Blue (Part II of II)

THE PLAYBIRDS (1978)
CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR (1979)

"A Murder Thriller with Thrilling Bodies!" THE PLAYBIRDS provided Britain's premier 70s sexpot Mary Millington with her most substantial part.

BECAUSE of the unfathomable financial success of COME PLAY WITH ME, executive producer David Sullivan quickly announced his next venture, with lover Mary Millington taking on a more sizable role. Proclaiming the follow-up would be the "hottest film ever to be screened in Britain," THE PLAYBIRDS is actually an overblown exercise in self-promotion, but does capture the tawdry aspects of 70s Soho amongst its car chases and bombastic theme tune. Belonging to a genre of British film that rejoice in the psychopathic killing of models (COVER GIRL KILLER, PEEPING TOM et al), Harry Dougan (Alan Lake, as an on-screen persona of Sullivan) is a racehorse-owning millionaire glamour publisher, who starts a series of supernatural-themed spreads that has attracted a deranged killer (who the press term "The Chopper.") After dispatching two ladies of sexploitation royalty (Pat Astley and Suzy Mandel), the murderer becomes involved in a cat-and-mouse game against Scotland Yard's finest (Glynn Edwards and Gavin Campbell, with Millington as undercover WPC Lucy Sheridan).

The in joke of pouring a 4'11" porn non-actress into a Police uniform - especially one as harassed by the law as Millington - is quickly forgotten as Sheridan is more at home to her new assignment than somnambulantly delivering dialogue at cop shop meetings. Developing her talents as a sauna prostitute, Lucy soon has a lesbian fling and sleeps with Dougan to achieve her goal to become a Playbirds centrefold. Regardless of the film being moulded as a Mary vehicle, the real actress with sex appeal here is Mandel: it was no mistake that she shared equal space on Tom Chantrell's eye-popping posters of COME PLAY WITH ME and THE PLAYBIRDS alongside her more illustrious colleague. The cherubic Mandel could actually deliver her lines with a knowing twinkle, and was a mainstay of 70s smut in this country until she emigrated to the United States. If you actually care about the murder investigation you have a variety of suspects beyond Dougan, but the final "shock ending" will leave no one satisfied.

The start of a stormy union: Diana Dors and third husband Alan Lake on their Wedding Day, November 1968. In 1972 after his release from prison, Lake broke his back during a horse riding accident, starting a descent into alcoholic violence and eventual gunshot suicide.

The following year Sullivan attempted to cash-in on the CONFESSIONS name with CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR, another Roldvale production distributed by Tigon. Lake gives one of the most self-indulgent lead performances in British film history as the titular super stud astrologer, who may - or may not - have been involved in a Securicor robbery five years previous. Behind his sparkling medallion, large lapels and annoyingly knowing swagger, Lake regularly breaks into a series of excruciating impressions (embracing anyone from Basil Rathbone to Bruce Forsyth, and anything from racism to homophobia), and also breaks wind in one jaw-dropping love-making scene. Despite this goggle-eyed eccentricity, Galaxy is still irresistible to women, refers to his penis as Fido, and sleeps with the entire female cast except for real-life wife Diana Dors, who plays the new owner of his apartment block.

In new levels of cinematic tedium, there is endless offering and pouring of drinks (often involving the police, tokenly fronted again by Glynn Edwards) but the film is saved from total disposability by the appearances of Rosemary England (Miss Beauty Bust) and - in a subplot incidental to the main narrative - Mary Millington (high society heiress Millicent Cumming). Never having experienced orgasm, Cumming hooks up with Galaxy in a multi-positional sequence played out against the astrologer's mirrored headboard. Despite this lengthy scene being one of the most explicit in a British sex comedy - one press release even insinuated that Lake and Millington actually had intercourse, much to Dors' disgust - the picture was a box office and critical disaster.

There's Something About Mary

COME PLAY WITH ME (1977)

David Sullivan’s (The New Blue) Exciting Cinema was ostensibly created as another platform in which to promote Mary Millington's appearance in COME PLAY WITH ME. This issue - from February 1978 - shows Mary posing next to her Mercedes-Benz.

MADE by Roldvale and distributed by Tigon, COME PLAY WITH ME features - rather than stars - Britain's favourite 1970s sexpot, Mary Millington. Born into unmarried parents, and suffering low-esteem during her formative years, bisexual Millington committed suicide in 1979 at the age of 33. Described by the Sunday Mirror's Colin Wills as the "Tooting Marilyn Monroe," Mary became an uninhibited performer for magazine shoots - including her lover David Sullivan's Playbirds and Whitehouse - and the modelling funded her beloved Mother's cancer treatment. On the printed page and on screen, the 4'11" non-actress clearly rejoiced in the naked form and loved being the centre of attention. Mary was also a high-class call girl, and her list of 'conquests' allegedly included Harold Wilson. Enjoying her celebrity status and lavish home, Millington's shrewd public image shrouded her private "little girl lost" demeanor, a savage contrast that determined a fall as swift as her rise.

Latterly Mary suffered from depression, kleptomania and cocaine abuse, becoming increasingly frazzled following the death of her mother in 1976. After this, Millington's bizarre level of morbidity included taking a Mortician course, and she even considered opening a funeral home. Mary was also a long-standing campaigner against censorship, having a disregard for authority that was fueled by repeated raids of her sex shop by the Obscene Publications Squad, and pressure from the Inland Revenue. Even an amateur psychologist can see the cracks: rejected by her father at birth, and with such a gulf between the public and real Mary, the need for value to offset her emptiness was recognised by money (she once proclaimed that cashing up at her sex shops was more gratifying than any carnal activity). As Julian Upton states in Fallen Stars: Tragic Lives and Lost Careers, Millington's films "...will never stand up, but her life story is a cautionary tale with a timeless significance."

The cover to Odeon's 2010 DVD. The disc also includes a 1975 8mm short made by George Harrison Marks and featuring Mary Millington - SEX IS MY BUSINESS - and publicist John M. East's dubious 1980 documentary MARY MILLINGTON'S TRUE BLUE CONFESSIONS.

An atrocious, star-studded sex comedy, COME PLAY WITH ME amazingly broke box office records throughout the UK and went on to become one of the most profitable movies of the decade, strongly sold by the image of Millington - who only appears on screen for a few minutes. The film tells of Cornelius Clapworthy (George Harrison Marks, also director/writer) and Maurice Kelly (Alfie Bass), two elderly forgers flooding the UK with fake £20 banknotes. On the run from gangster boss Slasher (Ronald Fraser) and government official Podsnap (Ken Parry), the pair pretend to be musicians, hiding out at a struggling Scottish B&B run by Lady Bovington (Irene Handl). When Bovington’s choreographer nephew Rodney (Jerry Lorden) arrives with his troupe of dancing girls business picks up, as the females - vaguely under the leadership of Rena (Suzy Mandel) - decide to help out by dressing up as nurses and re-opening the Manor as a brothel.

COME PLAY WITH ME gestated from an old Marks script bullishly pushed into production by Sullivan, who at this point was keen to produce movies. By 1976 "glamour" photographer/publisher Marks had endured two obscenity trials and seen his business empire go into receivership, but initially this team-up between the British porn kings seemed amicable, especially when Sullivan gave Marks a £120,000 budget without reading the full script. When footage was shown to the producer - a tired mix of music hall and veteran performers fluffing their lines or blankly gazing into camera - Sullivan was horrified, and extra filming took place at the Mayfair Burlesque Club and his own sauna in Croydon (plus extensive scenes on and around Brighton Pier). Sullivan also ordered shooting of additional hardcore sequences for the continental version, but the strong cut was never sold and was only screened once by mistake in North London. But the damage had been done; furious at the inclusion of blue material, Handl, Bass and Fraser all made complaints to Equity. This was all priceless publicity for a film which stands as one of the most bafflingly popular motion pictures in history.