BY TIM GREAVES
It's
probably difficult for those residing in more liberated territories – where pornography
was something of a matter of fact affair back in the 1970s – to appreciate just
how uptight and repressed Great Britain was in its attitude to sex. There were,
however, voices in the crowd that had the courage to speak out against the establishment's
Draconian stance (though largely without changing very much at the time, it's
sad to say). One of the most famous and outspoken of those voices was that of model-
cum -actress Mary Millington. Hers is a name that may not mean much to anyone
outside the United Kingdom, but few of those old enough to remember her rise to
superstar status during the 70s would dispute that in the latter half of that
decade she was nothing short of a sensation. Yet how could that possibly be so in
a country where the authorities vehemently reviled and sought to crush the
adult entertainment industry out of existence? Respectable: The Mary Millington Story, an enthralling new feature length
documentary, provides the answer to that and many more questions.
The
brainchild of writer/producer/director Simon Sheridan (whose lavish book
"Come Play with Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington" is absolutely
essential reading), over the course of some 110-minutes this definitive work
documents Mary's meteoric rise from underground hard-core loops through
celebrated softcore Brit sex comedies and on to a level of national celebrity
which found her rubbing shoulders with some of the most prolific figures of the
era.
Mary’s
career in the adult entertainment industry had kicked off at the start of the
decade with a clutch of hard-core loops shot in Europe, among them the famous
German short Miss Bohrloch (for which
she was paid the equivalent of almost £4000 by today's money). Few of them were
easily obtainable in the UK at the time though, for distribution of such
material was illegal. But if one knew where to go such things were available
“under the counterâ€, or if one were prepared to chance it they could be
acquired via the slew of mail order advertisements that appeared in adult
magazines.
Mary
liked to say that she was born respectable…but didn't let that spoil her life! Truer words were seldom spoken. However, that
life certainly wasn't an easy one. Though no striking beauty, she exuded a
provocative “attainable†girl next door appeal and even at the very height of
her fame never shied away from making herself accessible to her admirers. However,
said accessibility plus her unabashed, enthusiastic attitude to sex – moreover
a willingness to pose for and perform explicit sexual acts in front of a camera
– might have built her a huge fan base across the nation, but it also brought
her to the attention of the country's moral guardians. At the time Mary's
magazine spreads for publisher David Sullivan were helping him shift around a
million copies a month, and made her an obvious target for the crusaders’ puritanical
wrath. One of them was the infamous Mary Whitehouse whose ardent campaign to
sanitise British television diversified when she set her beady sights on the
porn industry. Sullivan delighted in tweaking the tiger’s tail, and among his
raft of adults-only titles was the cheekily-monikered "Whitehouse".
From
the mid-70s onwards Mary Millington shook the dust of hard-core films from her
shoes, and while continuing to model for magazine photoshoots – many of the
images in Sullivan’s titles pushing the limits of what UK laws would permit –
she also edged towards the less controversial environs of the silver screen,
popping up in softcore comedies such as Eskimo
Nell (1975) and Keep It Up Downstairs
(1976). It was Sullivan, when he moved into filmmaking, who really put Mary
on the map, featuring her in what was (and still is) the highest grossing
British sex film of all time, Come Play
With Me (1977). Although she didn't have a huge amount to do – she shared the
screen with a bevy of other models, who appear both in and out of their sexy
nurses uniforms – the film was always intended as a vehicle for Mary and she
was the focal point of its advertising campaign, which promised some the
strongest viewing material ever seen on British screens. This was gilding the
lily somewhat, to put it mildly. Although some fruitier footage had been shot
for overseas versions (but never saw the light of day), the British cut of Come Play With Me was in fact little
more than an amiable Carry On style
farce decorated with copious (but inoffensive) nudity and populated by a collective
of familiar British character actors, among them Irene Handl, Alfie Bass and
Ronald Fraser. Nevertheless, the film was a huge success, and went on to run
continuously at one of London's Soho cinemas for five years. Extensive
promotion took Mary to major cities across the UK, her adventures paraded in
the pages of Sullivan's magazines and increasing her popularity at a phenomenal
rate.
Such
was the box office success of Come Play With
Me that for his next feature, The
Playbirds (1978), Sullivan planted Mary firmly centre stage, cheekily having
her play a police officer who goes undercover in the sex industry to expose a
killer. The film again starred a bunch of Brit film and TV stalwarts, including
Windsor Davies, Derren Nesbitt, Glynn Edwards and Kenny Lynch.
At the height of her fight against censorship, one of Mary's ventures saw her open a sex shop in London, where she could often be found serving the clientele herself. But her insistence on testing the law in terms of what she stocked and sold led to a number of stressful brushes with the police. As the decade drew to a close, a cocktail of self-doubt, mental health issues, inconsolable grief over the death of her mother and persistent harassment by the authorities pushed Mary down a path of self-destruction. In the late summer of 1979, at the age of just 33, she took her own life.
Narrated by actor/director Dexter Fletcher (who just this year scored a hit with feel-good comic drama Eddie the Eagle), Respectable: The Mary Millington Story charts the lady's early life through family interviews and private photographs, her rise to celebrity via reminiscences from those who worked with and knew her intimately, and poignant detailing of the decline that led to her suicide. Key interviewees throughout include the aforementioned David Sullivan, actors Dudley Sutton (co-star in The Playbirds), Françoise Pascal (of hit TV series Mind Your Language fame, who worked with Mary on Keep It Up Downstairs) and Pat Astley (perhaps best remembered as old Mr Grace's nurse in TV's Are You Being Served, but more pertinently a performer in Come Play With Me, The Playbirds and Queen of the Blues), directors Willy Roe (who produced and helmed 1978's The Playbirds, along with Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair and Mary's final film, Queen of the Blues, both 1979), Stanley Long (whose film work included the saucy Adventures of... film series) and Michael Armstrong (whose Eskimo Nell boasts an early, fleeting turn from Mary), plus archive material featuring late filmmaker John Lindsay (the man behind literally hundreds of 8mm loops). Along with some marvellous old footage that shows the facades of Soho cinemas in their 70s heyday, there’s even some input from Mary herself via old audio interview recordings. The reminiscences – some amusing, others distinctly moving – are generously supported by movie clips and modelling photos (though be warned, some of the material on show is very explicit).
I cannot recommend Respectable: The Mary Millington Story highly enough. Whether you're among the casually curious interested in learning about the legend that is MM, or count yourself as one of her legion of still-dedicated fans, Simon Sheridan's outstanding film offers up enough absorbing material to slake the most demanding of thirsts. Supplementary material is also generous. There’s an audio commentary from Sheridan and the BFI's Sam Dunn, trailers for Come Play with Me and Respectable itself, b/w short Party Pieces (1974, once believed lost, though far from representative of Mary's most daring undertakings), plus expanded conversations with David Sullivan, Mary's Come Play With Me co-star Sue Longhurst and musician/actor Ed Tudor-Pole (Mary having appeared briefly alongside him in The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle).
Respectable: The Mary Millington Story is available now on Region 2 DVD in the UK from Simply Media.