The Amazing Mary Millington

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Millington has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond. [3] David Sullivan described her as "the only really uninhibited, natural sex symbol that Britain ever produced and who believed in what she did". [22] Between 1975 and 1982, there was always at least one of Millington's films playing in London's West End. [23] Cum Lay With Me (1977): short 8mm sex film starring Sonia Svenburger and directed by Harrison Marks.

Mary was actually a former veterinary nurse from Surrey, who stumbled into pornography quite accidentally; initially the hardcore variety and then softcore, which is not the usual career trajectory for actresses in that business. She had few inhibitions about sex and nudity, and after making some immensely successful 8mm films in Germany and The Netherlands, Mary began a relationship with publisher David Sullivan, who promoted her relentlessly in his stable of magazines, the most famous of which was Whitehouse - a cheeky sideswipe at Mary Whitehouse, the infamous pro-censorship campaigner. By the mid-1970s Mary started securing small supporting roles in British comedies like Eskimo Nell ( 1975) and Keep It Up Downstairs ( 1976). With Sullivan's help she soon elevated to more significant 'above the title' roles in Come Play With Me ( 1977) and The Playbirds ( 1978). That's how she gained a much wider audience. Adding extra VAM are Sheridan’s new documentaries, produced specially for this box set, offering a diverse range of fresh new insights into the Mary Millington success story. Harrison Marks’ daughter Josie offers some frank and funny recollections about the Come Play With Me svengali and there’s a surprisingly touching and affecting tribute documentary devoted to Harry Knights, Millington’s ghost-writer for her horny escapades in Whitehouse and Playmates. On a lighter note, photographer George Richardson recalls snapping the iconic photo of Mary outside 10 Downing Street and actress Sally Faulkner ( Doctor Who, Prey, Vampyres, I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight) is hilariously candid and insightful on her involvement in the British film industry during the sexploitation era. A highlight of the special features in this set is Mary Millington On Location, a time travel capsule which takes the viewer on a ‘then and now’ tour of significant locations in Mary’s life and career, classily narrated by Judy Matheson ( Lust For A Vampire, The Flesh & Blood Show). There’s also the option of commentaries with Sue Longhurst, David Sullivan, Willy Roe and more. Millington has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond. [3] Early life [ edit ] With the aggressive marketing and publicity skills of Playmates’ proprietor David Sullivan, Millington became a household name, principally through a trilogy of low-budget British films whose audience exceeded that of the ‘dirty mac brigade’ of Soho’s square mile; and it’s these films (restored in all their grubby-turned-pinsharp ‘70s glory) alongside a bountiful bevy of posthumous productions and specially-made bonus documentaries that comprise Screenbound’s gorgeous box set The Mary Millington Movie Collection, curated by Mary’s biographer Simon Sheridan.

Come Play With Me

a b Prynn, Jonathan (8 September 2017). "Former 'sex comedy' cinema given new life as steakhouse". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 8 September 2017. If that sounds tonally all over the shop, The Playbirds just about holds it together through sheer chutzpah. Imagine, if you will, The Sweeney as directed by Pete Walker or Derek Ford, with just a tang of giallo as detective Gavin Campbell (Yes, that’s right – one of ‘Esther’s boys’ from That’s Life) races in hot pursuit of the mystery assailant, not to mention the film’s downbeat ending. Sutton is just one of a number of stalwarts who grace The Playbirds with their aspect, and with scenes propped up with the likes of Windsor Davies ( It Ain’t Half Hot Mum), Glynn Edwards ( Minder), Kenny Lynch ( Dr Terror’s House of Horrors) and Ballard Berkeley ( Fawlty Towers), there’s something reassuring about these dependable figures propping up this bizarre, and largely successful, mix of sexploitation, crime caper and light-hearted comedy. It’s a sex comedy that’s neither sexy nor particularly comical, with the blame laying squarely between producer David Sullivan – who supplied the readies – and writer/director George Harrison Marks, the former king of the ‘nudie pics’, who litters the film with antiquarian music hall gags, a cheesy song’n’dance number and mugs shamelessly in the lead role defacto as Cornelius Cornworthy. It’s no Eskimo Nell.

A restored version of the film was released on Blu Ray in 2020 by Screenbound Pictures as part of the Mary Millington Movie Collection. [12] McGillivray, David (2017). Doing rude things: the history of the British sex film, 1957-1981 (2nded.). Wolfbait. ISBN 978-1999744151. Written, directed and produced by Mary Millington's biographer Simon Sheridan, the film mixes archive footage, previously unseen photographs and interviews with Millington's family, friends and co-stars, including David Sullivan, Pat Astley, Dudley Sutton, Linzi Drew and Flanagan. Twenty years after her death, the author and film historian Simon Sheridan put Millington's life into context in the biography Come Play with Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington. Further information about her career can be found in Sheridan's follow-up book Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, the fourth edition of which was published in April 2011. [26] A feature-length documentary chronicling Millington's life, entitled Respectable – The Mary Millington Story, [31] [32] [33] was partly shot and produced at Pinewood Studios in 2015.Millington was a member of the National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts (NCROPA) [19] [20] and encouraged her readers to demand the abolition of the Acts. [12] After her death, NCROPA founder David Webb wrote: "Mary was a dear, kind person and we much admired her courage in standing up to the bigotry and repression which still so pervades the establishment of this country. She obviously had tremendous pressures put on her as a result and there is no doubt in my mind that these must have contributed to this tragedy." [21]

Come Play With Me was released on 8mm by Fletcher Films and on VHS by Hokushin Audio Visual in 1979. [11] But as with everything, tastes change in British comedy, and they definitely did in the late-1970s. The fourth and final Confessions film was released in 1977, with the final in the original run of Carry On movies the year after. TV audiences were also huge at this point in time. People were tiring of traipsing out to the local ODEON to watch sex comedies, preferring to stay at home to watch The Benny Hill Show instead. Released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Mary Millington's death, this special edition Blu-ray box set (individually numbered and limited to 3,000 units) features Mary's most glamorous film roles, with new, stunning 2K restorations, including: Come Play With Me: Part 2 (1980): unrelated Swiss sex film directed by Erwin C. Dietrich, re-titled by Tigon and David Sullivan and promoted as a "sequel" to the earlier film.Simon Sheridan is a writer, broadcaster and filmmaker, as well as being Mary Millington's biographer. He is the world's leading authority on British sexploitation cinema and has written several books on the subject, including Come Play With Me: The Life And Films Of Mary Millington, X-Rated and Keeping The British End Up. Millington was buried at St Mary Magdalene Church, in South Holmwood, Surrey, marked by a grey granite tombstone which bears her married name. She is buried in the same grave as her mother, Joan Quilter, who died in 1976. [20] Legacy [ edit ] You don't really hear the word much 'sexploitation' anymore, but it's just a by-product of 'exploitation' - films predominantly made in the 1960s and 1970s that exploited a certain element of storytelling to engage the cinemagoers' attention. At the time, British filmmakers needed to offer the public something they couldn't see on TV - and this tended to be material which wasn't allowed on the small screen - namely violence, horror, martial arts and sex. In the 1970s British films were a lot tamer than European fare. Hardcore porn movies played mainstream cinemas on the continent, whereas in the UK it was a slightly different story. Upton, Julian (2004). Fallen stars: tragic lives and lost careers. Headpress/Critical Vision. ISBN 9781900486385.

Respectable - The Mary Millington Story". BFI. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016 . Retrieved 3 April 2016. In late 2009, an 8mm copy of one of her early John Lindsay short films Special Assignment resurfaced. Unseen since the early 1970s, it was subsequently transferred to DVD. Two years later in 2011, Wild Lovers, another 8mm film starring Millington, was also traced and transferred from 8mm to DVD. [ citation needed]Respectable: The Mary Millington Story’– audio commentary by director Simon Sheridan and the BFI’s Sam Dunn.