The Mary Millington Movie Collection
A British Blu-ray set collecting Mary Millington's movies on 5 discs. The set includes feature films, shorts, documentaries and a book.
Mary became the most popular nude model and film star in late 1970s Britain. I remember seeing her in British nudie mags like Playbirds and Whitehouse that made their way to North America in the late 70s and early 80s. I never saw any of her films until more recently.
Mary was very attractive and she quickly grew famous and highly popular in the world of sex mags and films. There were thousands of pictures in the magazines, she had columns about her sex life written for her, she made nudie shorts and appeared in feature length sex films. They were all softcore, she only made a small number of hardcore films in Europe. They were illegal to show or sell in Britain at the time.
Mary made a lot of money but her views on the sex business were out of line with the government guidelines. She had her own sex shop and it was always getting raided by the police. With the police and morality squads after her, it all became too much for her and Mary ended her life by suicide in 1979
Feature Films:
Come Play With Me 1977 Written and directed by Harrison Marks. A British sex comedy that was very popular with the public. It cost £120,000 to make, by 2001 it had earned over £4 million.
A pair of forgers are hiding out from their boss in the Scottish Highlands. They're pretending to be musicians and staying in a hotel that's also a health farm. Sadly the health business is failing to attract costumers and the owner is having some financial difficulties. The quiet hotel is the ideal place for the forgers to operate, they use their music to cover up the noise of their printing press.
The hotel owner's nephew comes to stay with some dancing girls. The dancers hope to help the owner out of her financial difficulties by turning the place into a brothel. The gals will dress as nurses and offer some naughty health remedies. The attractive business makes things difficult for the forgers when their old boss and his gang come by to get their ends away.
It's a below average musical comedy crime film with plenty of naked ladies and simulated sex. The jokes are weak and the musical numbers weaker still. I can't recommend it to anyone.
It comes on it's own disc, there's a commentary with Simon Sheridan and Sue Langhurst, a trailer, a Harrison Marks documentary, a sexy short and a Mary Millington featurette about her hardcore films with all the hardcore edited out.
The Playbirds 1978 Written and directed by Willy Roe.
A rather dark crime film about a serial killer who's targeting nude female models, he stabs them and carves a number into their foreheads. All the women have appeared nude in Playbirds magazine. The story is very much like a Giallo. Mary Millington plays a policewoman who gets selected to go undercover as a Playbirds magazine model. The movie ends with her being murdered by the killer. He turned out to be the twin of the man the police arrested.
It's a pretty terrible script, there's little sexy about it and the crime plot is pretty poor. Willy's not only a poor plotter and writer, he's a poor director too. I wouldn't recommend this either.
The movie has it's own disc with a commentary with Simon Sheridan and Willy Roe. The other extras include a documentary on photographer George Richardson, a nudie short and a featurette on Harry Knights. Harry was a writer who wrote millions of words for the UK nudie magazines. I thought that this was the most interesting thing on the disc.
Confessions From The David Galaxy Affair 1979 Written by Joe Ireland and directed by Willy Roe. A British sex comedy with Alan Lake, Mary Millington and Diana Dors. I thought Willy was a poor film maker but Joe Ireland has him beaten hands down in the scripting department.
Alan Lake is David Galaxy, he's a playboy astrologer who shags all the birds he can pick up. The title is trying to tie this film into the Confessions series of films that were fairly popular. Confessions Of A Window Cleaner was the first in the series and it was directed by Val Guest. The charming Robin Askwith plays Timothy Lea, he's always on the pull and all the ladies fall for his charm and charms. There's plenty of nudity and humping.
David Galaxy has no charms but the women hop into bed with him anyway. Just like it was scripted. As his story unfolds things start going south for David. First he falls out of favor with one lady and when the police come knocking. They think he had been the get away car driver in a robbery 5 years ago. His alibi is a politician who just won't corroborate his story. The police don't seem to care if he's guilty or innocent and he gets thrown in jail, tried and sent to prison.
Mary Millington plays a woman that has never had an orgasm, David's pal sets them up and starts a betting syndicate with a bookie. Diana Dors was Alan Lake's real life wife, she was 10 years older than him and her career was waning. She's David Galaxy's new landlord and that proves trouble.
Sadly, it's a terrible film with almost nothing going for it. Even all the naked ladies can't make up for such uninteresting characters and a lousy script. Don't watch it.
It comes on it's own disc, it has no commentary, I'm not that bothered. It has a nice documentary with Sally Faulkner and her time on the film. There are three sexy shorts with Mary and a look at some of the locations in Mary's life and in her films. Often her sex films were filmed in her home and the homes of her film making pals.
Queen Of The Blues 1979 Written by George Evans and directed by Willy Roe. A British sex comedy set in a striptease club. Mary Millington is the star attraction.
There's not much going on here, a dumb plot about gangsters offering protection and scenes of strippers getting their kit off. There's some backstage banter between the ladies and plenty of boobies on display. It's fairly dull but the story works itself out in the end.
This movie shares a disc with the two movies below. There's a commentary for this movie with Simon Sheridan, Allan Warren and David Sullivan. There's also a short nudie film with Mary and a couple of introduction videos.
Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions 1980 Written by John M East and directed by Nick Gailtress and John M East.
A short tribute film made a year after Mary's death. Fairly interesting but a lot of the material gets reused in Respectible. There's a commentary to this film with Simon Sheridan, Allan Warren and David Sullivan.
Mary Millington's World Striptease Extravaganza 1981 Written by John M East, David Sullivan and Bernie Winters, directed by Roy Deverell. Another short film about a strip off hosted by comedian Bernie Winters. It's not that interesting.
Respectable - The Mary Millington Story 2015 Written and directed by Simon Sheridan.
A nearly 2 hour long documentary with plenty of interviews with friends and family plus plenty of clips from Mary's films. It's fairly interesting for the most part. There's a commentary on the movie with Simon Sheridan and Sam Dunn from BFI. There's a short documentary on Sheridan and a trailer.
Generally a poor selection of films with some more interesting extras. Hardly worth the money for the set. I wouldn't recommend it to most people. For me the most interesting material was the background on the nudie movie industry at the time.