RESPECTABLE - THE MARY MILLINGTON STORY (2016) // WORLD PREMIERE OF SIMON SHERIDAN'S LABOUR OF LOVE TO THE ULTIMATELY TRAGIC, BUT MOSTLY JOYOUS, HARD LIFE AND TIMES OF A SEXY SUBURBAN SUPERSTAR!

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE MARY MILLINGTON STORY - WATCH BEFORE READING. THIS REVIEW IS NOT SUITABLE FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18 - OR READERS OF THE DAILY MAIL . .  BEST READ NAKED (AS NATURE INTENDED).

RESPECTABLE: THE MARY MILLINGTON STORY, is a labour of love from respected film author and now filmmaker, Simon Sheridan - a quite obsessive fan and historian of both Millington (the X-rated movie superstar) and the Soho-shot sexploitation films from that same era. Simon's books about those heady, often censored, but still super liberal days: 'Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema' and 'Come Play With Me: The Life and Times of Mary Millington' (and 'X-Rated: Adventures of an Exploitation Filmmaker' about director Stanley Long's 'Adventures Of . .' films - and others) have become definitive reference works on all things naughty, nice and partly clad in a nurse's uniform (or permanently clutching at a stiff policeman's truncheon). Ah, those were the days . .

Millington was a household name in the 1970s and starred in the longest-running UK theatrical film screening ever - 1977's COME PLAY WITH ME (which ran for almost 4 years continuously at the Moulin Cinema, West End). Mary went from the quiet and leafy (if swinging) Dorking to the bright, shady lights of sex shop city Soho and, in her final years, enjoyed some quieter times as a resident of leafy Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey where she eventually committed suicide (probably - although tonight's film also reveals that some of her friends and family still have doubts) at the age of 33.

It's now the 7th April, 2016, and a very rainy day in Soho . . 

I rush to catch a bus to Piccadilly Circus from Victoria Station, and just miss it. Out of breath, I take out a rather large blue card from my back pocket and check the times printed underneath (actually underneath the wide open legs of famous glamour model and cult saucy film star - Mary Millington) before realising I'm being watched intently by a hook-nosed elderly lady sitting at the bus stop next to me, and whose glasses now appear to be rapidly steaming up . . 

Could this fellow passenger - I wonder - be the reincarnation of the much-feared anti-pornography and anti-anything too scary for kids stalwart Mary Whitehouse (who found an especially easy target in Tom Baker's gothic Doctor Who of the late 70s)? That woman was a tireless campaigner against sex films across the country, but especially in Soho where they were rattlingly projected (censored mainly) onto screens such as the Cannon Moulin on Great Windmill Street (where there would be a sleazy selection of naughty, often imported, shortened and dubbed sex films on triple-bill screenings every single day - even on Sundays!).

As much as I see 'moral' campaigner Mary Whitehouse as an enemy of sorts, at least to freedom of artistic expression, she's also quite iconic and quirkily memorable in her own way (compared to others of her kind!). The butt of many jokes over the years (even in tonight's documentary there are a number Mary Whitehouse jokes - mainly about how she would have been less angry had she dropped her knickers occasionally) it's also true that, without this woman's tireless opposition to pornography, the British sex industry would never have become quite so excitingly enraged, energetic and sometimes (through necessity) subversive.

A wonderful recollection in the documentary tonight tells of how Mary Whitehouse once turned up at a sex film screening in a Soho cinema with her husband beside her. As soon as the action started getting steamy, she strutted down the aisle, slammed open the exit doors and screamed about the movie being ABSOLUTE FILTH - or words to that effect. Of course, every critic has a right to an opinion, even bloody Mary!

The Soho sex industry got its own back. Headed by porn publisher David Sullivan, of whom some talking heads in the new documentary claim that to get inside one of his magazines (which included Playbirds and Private, oh - and Whitehouse, named after you know who!) you had to: "Give a blowjob to get a job!". Linzi Drew, a starlet of that era, and former partner of a more modern day adult film star and director - Ben Dover (the man who made the kind of 'reality sex films' that gave the British film censors heart palpitations throughout the 90s and beyond) revealed that she never stooped so low as to give Sullivan what he wanted (that blowjob for a new job thing) -"I'm the one that got away, David" she says with a wry smile.

I spot Linzi herself at the Regent Street cinema's packed and rather warm bar prior to the RESPECTABLE screening. She's there with her rather towering-over-everyone son Tyger Drew-Honey (from the BBC sitcoms OUTNUMBERED and CUCKOO) and who is offering mum some bar snacks while Ed Tudor-Pole (from Mary's last film - 1980's THE GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL SWINDLE, and also a pop/ punk legend and TV's Crystal Maze guider) chats to a few old familiars, just a short Millington-style long arm of the law's length away. How often . . just how often, do you get a gathering like this!

I find myself chatting to David Benson of THINK NO EVIL OF US: MY LIFE WITH KENNETH WILLIAMS fame (one of the first stage shows I saw in London, when I was of age!) and who will be appearing on stage in a few weeks as London mayor Boris Johnson. He tells me he doesn't really know all that much about Mary Millington. At the Q&A after the screening, he applauds Simon's work and admits to some tears by the end (and there are many others in the audience feeling the same way). I can also vouch for much laughter throughout the film from the audience as well (the humour in the documentary mirroring Mary's own often bubbly personality, as well as many of the slap and tickle films that she appeared in).



On the way to the premiere - Soho's Raymond Revuebar (RIP!)

Simon Sheridan tells us that all the former glamour models and X-rated cinema stars he interviewed for the film, spoke - perhaps surprisingly - of all the fun they'd had in that heady 70s sex industry heyday in Soho, and never once felt exploited: they did it for themselves.

Mary wasn't a shy girl snared by the seedy sex industry as she walked back home from college. After she moved to Dorking, she was an enthusiastic member of the local swinging set long before her saucy smile (her favourite and often only item of attire) became so well known. Apparently it's an activity that's apparently still very active in the Dorking area, even today: "I go to Dorking quite a lot," says Simon, to much laughter. "And many of the people you speak to on the street do seem to be swingers." I'm not sure why he is asking strangers in the street such questions in the first place - let's just assume it was for . . research!



"Hello. Is that Miss Bohrloch?"

RESPECTABLE doesn't shy away from the downside of the British sex industry. Although Millington probably would have headed into glamour modelling, and even sex cinema, anyway (according to Sheridan) the move was sealed when her beloved mother became ill and Mary had to help pay the bills for her treatment.


Growing up in Kenton, Mary had always been an exhibitionist - perhaps due to not having a father around and being 'illegitimate' and taking ridicule at school (in the days when it seemed to matter). Her need for attention meant that she would be likely to open the front door to strangers topless or - in later years - go on family holidays and parade around on boat decks completely naked and happy to pose for any passing lens. It was, for those that knew her, just Mary being Mary!

She met a local butcher called Bob Maxted, married him young and they lived together in Dorking. It was probably, many say, a marriage of convenience - but Mary still stuck with him for the rest of her life. I read a story the other day from a former colleague of Bob's (they worked in the same supermarket) about how he once told some fellow workers that he was married to a porn star. Presumably this was greeted with some scepticism as Mary apparently then did a strip for them all in the warehouse to prove it!

Some of Mary's family still blame Bob for the spiralling out of control of Mary's lifestyle at the end of her life, and there's even the occasional suggestion he let her down by arguing about finances on the night of her death, and for not checking on her as she lay dying of an overdose in the upstairs bedroom. But there's only so much blame one man can take for a life that had so many strangling strings pulled from all directions on this vulnerable sexpot puppet of the hugely rich and famous.



NOSTAGIA LIVES! On the way back from the premiere - more published retro sex in a Soho shop window!

Some speculate Mary's death may not have been suicide and the documentary addresses this subject with some palpable caution (not surprisingly as this is supposed to be a celebration of Mary's life and a sadness for her early death, rather than a 'conspiracy theory' expose).

But her tragic end, clearly can't be entirely ignored. On the night of her death, Mary swallowed all the tablets she had taken with a large amount of vodka and there is a claim in the documentary that Mary never drank any alcohol and had a strong aversion to it - apparently she couldn't even bear the smell of beer if someone had been drinking it near her. But I also read a report, shortly after watching the documentary, from a former co-star of Mary's claiming that she often enjoyed a Campari and lemonade on set . . 

Whether Mary's death was suicide or not, we will probably never know with absolute certainty. Most seem to think it was a suicide, due to her state of mind at the time and the notes that she wrote to some of her friends as she lay dying. Simon Sheridan himself has said that he keeps an open mind on the suggestion that Mary's death was not a suicide and refuses, in public at least, to take any one definitive side. A family member at the Q&A states that she is certain Mary's death would not have been of her own free will. There's a decided chill, and a sudden pause in the room as this vehement assertion is taken on board by everyone present.

Feelings naturally still run deep, but there is no animosity tonight from any of those attending the screening - although many do wish to make clear their views. I meet some of Mary's family in the corridor after the movie and they are polite and friendly, delighted with the film and dignified when talking about the cherished family member they obviously still care so much about, and wish to protect the memory of.

What we do know for certain about Mary's final day is that she approached the end of her life convinced there were many people in high places out to get her. In a letter written to David Sullivan on the night that she died, she wrote: "The police have framed me yet again. They frighten me so much. I can’t face the thought of prison." Mary had been arrested by police for shoplifting and for obscenity (her 'Whitehouse' sex shop in Norbury had been raided often, and eventually emptied) and there was a suggestion that Mary was on the verge of bankruptcy. In the words used in her final letter: "The Nazi taxman has finished me". 

Bob Maxted, Mary's husband,  didn't want to appear in the documentary. Simon Sheridan did approach him, but he has a new life now - a new name and a new family. When Simon went to visit him, it was clear that he wasn't welcome and Simon pauses for a considerable few seconds (that feel, while on tenterhooks, like minutes) to consider whether to expand on why and what happened - but the evening isn't about snitching. You can understand, perhaps, why Bob would wish to stay clear of all the fuss - this man has, over the years, had a lot of negative press directed at him (even a family member of Mary's admits this to be the case) about not being able to save his wife from suicide, or suspicion about what happened on Mary's final night.


Maybe Bob was just a regular guy caught up in the pitfalls of fame almost as much as Mary herself had been - a regular guy with an unconventional lifestyle and marriage (and what is conventional anyway?). But the person he was married to was every fan's obsession, and for many - a fantasy lover: their secret desire . . That must have been difficult at times to take on board. At others - probably fabulous!

Suicide at 33 was not an entirely unexpected conclusion to Mary's short, but often joyous, life. In her final years she was destroyed by drug addiction and depression, facing a shoplifting conviction with an almost certain prison sentence and huge debt . .

Starting off in glamour modelling, Mary most famously posed for David Sullivan's top shelf magazine range. It's admitted - from Simon Sheridan himself (thanks to an observation from a member of tonight's audience) - that Sullivan may not have been that pleasant a man all the time (but surely at least some of the time!) back in the day. But he has mellowed considerably and is now Vice-Chairman of West Ham FC - so he must be ok, right?

Sullivan, although a ruthless player, also seemed to treat Mary with a lot of respect and love, even though he did cultivate, very shrewdly (as he freely admits on screen) her image (changing his fledgling star's name from Mary Maxted to Mary Millington because he already had a Doreen Millington as an editor on one of his top shelf magazines, and he wanted to pretend that Mary was her sister!).

Sullivan was executive producer of a highly controversial, cheaply-made 'tribute' film to Millington shortly after her death, called MARY MILLINGTON'S TRUE BLUE CONFESSIONS (1980) which loosely dramatized parts of the star's life alongside interviews with those that knew her. But it was shots of a double (Mary Harper) for Mary in a coffin that caused some outrage and the film has been mainly kept hidden under the shag carpet ever since. Mary's friend and co-star John East came up with the idea, and the entire project irked fans.

Still, it's a rare curio and of some considerable interest to fans of the star, and of that era, today. In it's own weird way, the film could also be viewed as document of a coping mechanism for some of those that loved her - a revival of sorts as a way to blank out the fact that Mary was no more, even if it was a misguided and crass project in retrospect, in the eyes of many.
 

David Sullivan wasn't - in a campaigning sense - as liberal as Mary. While she tirelessly campaigned to stock whatever she wanted in her sex shop, he was more cautious about restrictive UK laws on pornography at the time. Sullivan often irritated the authorities and was hounded for providing even the regulatory, if often pushing the boundaries, sex entertainment to those who sought it - but he was careful (he says!) not to do anything that really crossed the line.


And Sullivan was, after all, a businessman first and foremost - not the campaigner against pornography laws that Mary and many others in the adult industry that she worked in (including 8mm sex loop director John Lindsay) seemed to be happy to defend themselves in court to fight.

Other leading lights of the Soho filmmaking contingent, including Willy Roe (who directed Mary's THE PLAYBIRDS in 1978, and 1979's CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR and QUEEN OF THE BLUES) or 8mm glamour and comic sex-shooter (and relentless censor-spanker) - George Harrison Marks (COME PLAY WITH ME) were happy to shoot additional hardcore scenes for the export market, free of the UK's harsh censorship laws on hardcore (or even too much softcore - before the internet broke all the rules and film classification laws became more relaxed at the start of this century).

Throughout the screening of RESPECTABLE, snippets from Mary's hardcore early shorts are screened, and you know what - nothing feels sleazy. This is, after all, just sex and nostalgia now, and mostly quite endearing. Why film censors were so riled-up and ran scared stiff from stuff like this seems ludicrous to a modern audience who generally believe that, if legal and not harming anyone else (and we are over 18 and all that) then why should we not have the right to watch what we like - including actual sex on screen?

Today, explicit sex is allowed in cinemas, so long as it's not there for the purpose of 'arousing' the viewer it seems. So 'artistic films' like 9 SONGS (2004), ROMANCE (1999), NYMPHOMANIAC (2013), STRANGER BY THE LAKE (2013), Q (2011), CLIP (2012) and LOVE (2015) are allowed to tease us with real sex, if not actually dwell on the sight too long or too often!

Actual sex films are now allowed to be sold in sex shops uncut of course, which they couldn't back in Mary's day - or even throughout the 80s and 90s on VHS and then on DVD (unless heavily edited and blurred into slow motion sequences when things got too sweaty - so that viewers didn't get too aroused, even under a special 'R18' certificate: for sex shops to sell only).

Uncut adult film releases sold in the sex shops of Soho were only ever kept 'under the counter'. Those early VHS tapes sold on the shelves, didn't revolutionise the industry's permissiveness (although the new, easy format revolutionised the black market side!) and were only really a little bit ruder than an '18' found on the shelves of HMV (that were also often cut). This heavy censorship on the rise and fall of VHS (despite an initial sense of liberation) lasted from the late 70s/ early 80s all the way up to the start of the next century and into the DVD era.

Maybe there's some nostalgia to be relished from all that under-the-counter nonsense back in the day that kind of defines old-school Soho, as it once was, to many lovers of the retro sex industry and the wild practitioners of the day - often more sleazy than the films they were making and working to low or no budgets before partying with the rich and famous in luridly-lit underground strip clubs and seedy massage parlours.

"This story is true, but actual names and places are fictitious . ."

Even the Soho filmmakers lampooned the era, as it happened - Pete Walker's quietly subversive COOL IT CAROL (1970) being almost a premonition of the life of Mary Millington and perhaps even her husband (or one of her boyfriends!) albeit with a more bittersweet, redemptive ending than the tragic last bow of Mary's ended up being. The 'Cool it Carol' story was based on a newspaper report that Walker had read in the News of the World . .



COOL IT - CAROL!

Without censorship in British 70s sex cinema, there would have been no need for rebellion, subversion, enemies like Mary Whitehouse (and for many in the Soho sex industry - the politicians, judges and the police!) and some of those films, often then banned or frowned upon but now widely available and respectable (including a newly remastered DVD of COME PLAY WITH ME) may not have become so defining of the era (or have played at the Cannon Windmill for such a record-breaking run!).

Horror films were also heavily restricted and criminalised at the time (and eventually labelled as video nasties) after the initial freedom of videotapes without certificates in the late 70s/ early 80s saw those 'pre-cert' tapes push boundaries. Of course, many of those once banned films, such as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) are now available uncut in the UK. But not all, and some classic so-called nasties - such as the still intense and disturbing (and defining of an era) I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (aka: DAY OF THE WOMAN) are still heavily censored (but also available uncut in many other countries).

Censorship in the UK has relaxed, but is still often determinedly restrictive, especially if a film mixes sex and violence. Which rules out an uncut release for Derek Ford's (who worked with Mary Millington on 1978's WHAT'S UP SUPERDOC?) 1976 sex shocker - 'DIVERSIONS' that actually did push real boundaries, some would say too far!

Mary's oft-feared boys in blue are represented in Simon's documentary - older and wiser perhaps, but with a former officer looking back on those giddy times quite matter-of-factly and discussing how they would often have to raid Mary's sex shop. That was the law though - pornography was not allowed to be sold on the shop shelves so it led to owners keeping their illegal material under the counter, never on display. Customers would have to choose a movie, perhaps from a well-thumbed catalogue, and get out quick - their brown paper bags tucked under their macs!
 

And so, looking under the counter, of course, was the first thing the police would do on a raid - we are reliably informed! Nobody cared about the stuff on the shelves. And Mary was targeted relentlessly.

Millington wound up the establishment, for sure - but she was also abused by it. She was passed around from celebrity to celebrity and even, it's rumoured, had her wicked way with Harold Wilson one time, but whether that was consummated with or without his pipe in his mouth, nobody seems to know for sure!

According to David Sullivan, Mary did talk about this rumoured affair (or maybe more, it seems - just a one night stand!) with the then prime minister to him, but he doesn't know whether it's true or not - it would seem like a very odd story to want to make up, is all he can say further.  

Without doubt, Mary did canoodle with the cream of TV, film and radio. Actor Dave Cash from 1972's THE DAVE CASH RADIO SHOW talks poignantly about his relationship with the star and how she argued with him just before she died and his regret at this being their final farewell - Mary accused him of running off with some other floozy as he walked away from her. Other familiar faces of those linked with Mary flash up on screen before us as we watch the documentary dip a toe in darker waters  - including a brief flash of Bob Monkhouse. Oh - the scandal!

Mary was married, but she had an open marriage that included swinging, other longterm boyfriends and fleeting lovers and, in her magazine PLAYBIRDS, she would travel the country to places such as Leeds or Sunderland to 'meet the people' - a David Sullivan idea (who also revealed that Mary loved meeting everyone - the uglier or older, most geeky or boring the better as this made her fans feel like: 'It could be me too!'). In RESPECTABLE, Sullivan reveals that he suspects Mary 'probably did sleep with some of the people she met' on those pictorial assignments of hers that proved so popular with readers (with the magazines still very collectable today). That was Mary, being Mary again . .

 



She would also be pictured on film sets (famously on the set of ALIEN) or (David Sullivan laughs as he remembers . .) unexpectedly with Russian submarine crews, refuse collectors, firemen - you name it; Mary was there with a smile, and nothing else. At auditions, she would also strip off without being asked and tell film producers uninhibited reasons to hire her, such as the fact she had a very smooth bottom - and would anyone like to check! Neighbours and friends of Mary also speak of how she would often walk around naked, as if it was entirely natural and far more decent than being clothed - truly naked as nature intended!

Throughout RESPECTABLE, we also get snippets of footage from Mary's 8mm films. The most famous of these is probably 1970's MISS BOHRLOCH from jolly hockey sticks-fame adult filmmaker John Lindsay. MISS BOHRLOCH starts with two men calling Mary from a red phone box and then going up to her flat - she wears both of them out with her sex prowess and eventually makes them do the dishes! The film includes a slow-motion and rather surreal money shot and is streaked through with a sleazy suburban humour (the psychedelic climax is sadly not shown in the documentary, but far more than you would have been allowed to see just a decade and a bit ago, definitely is).

Mary's participation in these explicit films (she would also travel abroad to countries such as Sweden and Germany to make films for less restrictive countries as ours) meant that she also found in harder to get into mainstream filmmaking and the softer glamour pictorials - it was soft sex comedy films or nothing as her next move (except for 1975's EROTIC INFERNO from Trevor Wrenn, which was a far darker and more sinister film than any of Mary's other movies).

David Sullivan admits that models who had appeared in hardcore shoots would then be very unlikely to move on to the lucrative likes of the Page 3 spreads in The Sun. Even Benny Hill apparently drew the line at having such girls appear in his shows, however much he liked them in person. I think, had Mary lived beyond 33, she would have gone on to appear in more mainstream cinema though, especially the horror genre.

Despite her star status, Mary Millington actually had very little self-confidence. Through the interviews we now have on record (thanks to flexidiscs from top shelf magazines) Mary has admitted that she couldn't act and would never watch a movie that she was starring in herself - certainly never wanting to see her silly little face on screen. And yet, as David Sullivan rightly observes, while she would often seem keen to avoid the limelight, and even be dismissive of her talent, Mary would then be out on the street and meeting her fans wearing her 'MM' necklace and living up to the character she (and Sullivan) had created: relishing all the attention and celebrity status (including a close but hugely destructive friendship with Diana Dors).

DELICIOUS - DIANA DORS!

Diana Dors was perhaps even more liberal-minded than Mary and we hear stories in RESPECTABLE about how she would organise, with her husband Alan Lake, sex and drug orgies at her home - endless pretty girls were drafted in for the night (Mary helping to arrange this). Millington became part of this high society set and it's probably where her final decent into drug abuse took place (cocaine being freely available and essential at these parties). Mary went spiralling into depression, hung up on her fading looks and dwindling modelling career: she was replaced for much younger models by the people she trusted and thought she had loved.

Despite starring in the record-breaking sex comedy hit COME PLAY WITH ME, and its follow-ups: THE PLAYBIRDS, CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR, and QUEEN OF THE BLUES (a leading final role for Mary, but one that drained away on set as her ability to cope with the demands of a starring film shoot in the last hurrah of her tossed-around life became all too evident) Mary was only treading water, with no real shore to swim towards. There was also THE GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL SWINDLE (1980) alongside the remaining Sex Pistols, right at the end - but Mary's life was just about over, to be outlived by her youthful fame and eternal notoriety.

David Sullivan recalls how his biggest star and lover would present him with expensive gifts and show him all the jewellery that she had bought, and all the designer clothing too. He didn't understand why she was buying so much, and told her so - Mary told him that he would understand one day, after her death. Many of those items she presented to him, were most probably stolen from shops. Others recall how Mary would visit hotels and restaurants and end up with half the restaurant in her large bag, rattling away alongside her as she left.

Without doubt, the life of Mary Millington was a whole lot of fun: she craved attention and loved sex. There was fun to be had on set too: we learn about how COME PLAY WITH ME was made as a labour of love, but mostly just in chaos. It still went on to huge success and just couldn't seem to stop making money. It was like Carry On with tits and bush and was only mildly sexy (ruder clips for an export version were shot but never screened - pictorials in David Sullivan magazines also made some use of  some rather more explicit moments not seen on the big screen but exact clarity on what was shot, and what was just pretended to have been shot, still provides fuel for debate in Mary Millington fan circles!).

But when the famous cast of old familiars, that included Irene Handl and Alfie Bass, found out about the more adult additional sequences being filmed, they apparently weren't as happy as the tempted punters were (even though the paying public never got to see any of that kind of stuff at the actual screenings anyway!).

Another well-thumbed rumour, tells how the late great, grand old dame of British comedy - Irene Handl, was supposed to have bonded on a film set with Mary Millington over a line of cocaine! Which leads into a story from 80-year-old actor Jess Conrad, at the Q&A after the screening of RESPECTABLE, who remembers how he was once pressured into taking a line of cocaine by some unidentified 'bruiser' while filming THE GREAT ROCK 'N' ROLL SWINDLE (that he featured in, alongside both Millington and Handl) and that he refused - he didn't do drugs (and was also supposed to appear in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk later that same day - so wanted to have a clear head!). He was basically told he had no choice - so he did, and it went (of course) straight to his head . . 

At the pantomime that evening, a lone member of the crew was heard to be hissing in some panic that: Jess Conrad is chasing the giant up the beanstalk - and he won't come down! Simon Sheridan quickly points out that Jess is actually one of the most clean-living of people you could ever hope to meet - but Jess's eyes are still glinting wickedly as he leaves the auditorium!

Prior to the screening of Sheridan's documentary, a blue plaque to honour the record breaking run of COME PLAY WITH ME and the life of its star Mary Millington is unveiled by David Sullivan at BAR GRACE - site of the legendary Moulin Cinema in Great Windmill Street where the film dug its heels into the fag-littered concrete, covered itself up in a shabby raincoat and stayed put for those 4 record-breaking years of continuous run!



Secrets, in front of the Windmill . . !

Friends and famous faces attend the unveiling of the plaque and the cinema screening a few hours later: Jess Conrad, director Willy (THE PLAYBIRDS) Roe, Francoise Pascal, Linzi Drew and son Tyger Drew-Honey, David McGillivray, Ed Tudor-Pole and, rather incredibly, the daughter of George Harrison Marks - Josie. Her dad was probably the most famous glamour photographer of Mary's era - director of shorts that included: HALFWAY INN (1970) and VAMPIRE (1963); the feature length sex comedies COME PLAY WITH ME (1977) and THE 9 AGES OF NAKEDNESS (1969); and the infamous naturist documentary (to get past the censor) NAKED AS NATURE INTENDED (1961).

I don't have a big extending lens (the man in front of me has though; a seven-incher at least, pointed rather boastingly at Mary's blue plaque) but I do have a little fliptop phone on me (hey - size isn't everything!) to record what's happening, as the curtain is pulled and the plaque reveals all. It's a rather surreal and truly a one-off gathering in front of me - famous faces from the 70s sexploitation era all gathered together in the heart of a Soho afternoon, and still looking as sprightly as ever!

In the pictures below: the man in the smart, probably hugely expensive overcoat unveiling the plaque (who looks like a football club chairman) is publisher and football club chairman David Sullivan; the man in the crumpled leather jacket (who looks like a 70s Soho sexploitation film director) is 70s Soho sexploitation film director Willy (THE PLAYBIRDS) Roe and the man with the white hair (who looks almost impossibly still youthful) is almost impossibly still youthful actor Jess Conrad! The tall man (with the best-looking hair) is Simon Sheridan (doing all the hard work in choreographing the event and speaking at some length about Mary and her legacy to Soho and the historic site of the famous Moulin cinema).

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the girls in yellow COME PLAY WITH ME t-shirts who look a bit like Mary Millington - are girls in yellow COME PLAY WITH ME t-shirts who look a bit like Mary Millington (and do a great job not looking even remotely frozen in the cold late afternoon breeze while the rest of us wrap up in our best thick coats!).
                                           

                                     

WILLY ROE - THIS CHARMING MAN!

SIMON SHERIDAN (at back) & GANG

                      



JESS CONRAD HOLDS UP THE BAR!

DAVID SULLIVAN COMES OUT FIGHTING!

             



GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS! 



WILLY & DAVID - FOREVER! 

Random strangers come up to me and ask what's going on - who is everyone taking pictures of? I tell them about the film and its star, but there's little recognition and I think to myself that once, on Great Windmill Street, Mary Millington's name would be known by just about everyone. But for those that do care, the unveiling of the blue plaque, with the rain miraculously gone and the sun just about shining for our star's big moment, is greeted with a huge cheer.

And it is, at this moment, a kind of justification for everything that so many moral campaigners out there don't want the likes of us to celebrate (a feature in the Daily Mail this week about the plaque is greeted with predictable rage by some readers claiming that it has been funded by taxpayers money - it hasn't, and was independently funded).

Also at the unveiling and the screening are many of Mary's family. At the Q&A, a family member thanks Simon for such an honest documentary that he says: really captured the way all the family still remember Mary. Another relative breaks down in tears as she recalls how Mary was really just an ordinary girl at heart and still remembers going berry picking with her - precious memories.

Mary was perhaps exploited to an extent, in that she became a character invented to sell copy. Mary Millington never really existed. She was always really just Mary Maxted from Dorking. But Mary Maxted was also just as naughty and mischievous at heart as the Millington persona that she became.

The films Mary appeared in, despite early loops being explicit, had a natural innocence and charm. Box office hits of the era, such as COME PLAY WITH ME, are best viewed today with nostalgia and wry appreciation. It's a film than many modern filmgoers may well wonder what all the fuss was all about! 

Reminiscences in the documentary share how the COME PLAY WITH ME cast were told they were supposed to be members of an exotic dance troupe stuck at a country hotel and health farm with only one change of clothing left on them (to help with the budget!). Nobody really thought there was much of a script as such, but the basic plot had lots of pretty girls taking up positions as nurses and even asked to perform in a random dance number (in their stockings and suspenders) - despite having no clue how to dance in time (and it shows). But do watch the film - it's great fun!

Ah, the undisciplined chaos and (slightly) rude health of those slap 'n' tickle days . .

But a darker side existed in the industry of which hardcore pornography was just a scapegoat. Mary recalls being hounded by establishment figures. She posed on the doorstep of No.10 and undid her top. The police demanded the film back and rather resourcefully, she hid it internally - thereby allowing the filmreel to survive to see another day! But times weren't always such fun, and her rumoured trysts with top politicians, celebrities and the police were legendary but also had repercussions (there's a claim in the documentary that the police would allow other officers to visit the station when they had Mary in custody and ask her to strip for them). Mary herself alleges that police officers were appearing in her films as extras as well - just to keep watch on her.

The truth about Mary's life and death is often threaded with rumour and uncertainty. Simon Sheridan warns in his introduction that the film includes plenty of sex - but the film isn't only about sex. It's also a story about love, family, friendship, success, failure, depression and the need to support those who suffer with deteriorating mental health through even their darkest days.

Because Mary probably was let down by not having the strong support that she should have had when she needed it most. That could be more the fault of society rather than the fault of friends and family, many of whom remained supportive. But the adult industry she had worked tirelessly for and had made so profitable had now moved on (the very worst stab in the back of all) and Mary was left floundering financially and in debt. She had been as good as hounded out of town by the police as well at the end. Or out of Norbury at least, where her sex shop was based, and where she would attract customers wanting to be served by the sex star herself, often only wearing a G-string while doing so.

We also hear how Mary could turn customer complaints over the phone into a request for her working hours in the shop, so they could visit and spend some more of their cash - forget the complaint! Now that's marketing . .

As she lay dying at her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Mary asked one of her actor friends - John East (a co-star of Mary's in many of her films) to sing to her down the phone (he was unaware that Mary had taken any pills). The song he was asked to sing was Goodnight Sweetheart, so he did. Then she said goodnight. It was probably the last word she ever said. After being caught shoplifting again, Mary had been told that a prison sentence was almost a certainty. It was the final blow.

Nobody really knows why Mary shoplifted. Simon thinks, as others also claim, that it could have been a need for attention (being without a father during her childhood and then, most devastatingly, without her mother - after which Mary was never the same) and a need (as David Sullivan thinks) for possessions in her life, which she never really had when growing up.

8mm . . better than Betamax!

RESPECTABLE: THE MARY MILLINGTON STORY is an eye-popping and tear-welling true story about an attention-seeking pretty girl who had all her wishes granted but when those wishes grew and grew, they ultimately overwhelmed and destroyed her with an X-rated dagger to the heart.

The girl next door-looks became hardened and wide-eyed with drug abuse. This perky girl's tiny frame; this beguiling bundle of pure suburban naughtiness with that cheeky smile and a charming lack of self-confidence, were battered into submission by an industry too often more interested in profit than vindication or the war against censorship. Few in authority or in respectable society, or even many of those who used her along the way for their own ends, wanted to help Mary Millington survive her demons at the end - instead, many authority figures seemingly made it their main intention to make her life much worse: unliveable.


David Sullivan talks about how he first met Mary - she was served up to him on a plate as a birthday surprise which he unflinchingly agrees that, today: sounds pretty awful. But those were the times, and out of all those who knew her the best, Sullivan seems like one of the most constantly supportive and - perhaps surprisingly - caring (just as likely to try and calm down some of Mary's wilder impulses than encourage them). There are tears in David Sullivan's eyes of course, when he talks about her - throughout the film.

At the Q&A, a former 'Page 3' girl talks about how she has buried many friends ruined by the sex industry over the years - with a move into hardcore pornography often, she claims, being their downfall. Mary, however, did it in reverse - she started  off in the hard loops and then moved into softcore. Many other contemporaries at the screening sigh out loud as tributes to Mary flow. Most importantly, another family member thanks Simon personally for the closure the film has brought their family.

'RESPECTABLE' is out on DVD next month, available on Netflix now and will also be screened on London Live (maybe even uncut!). I hope the film gets more theatrical screenings at festivals as well, as it's best to watch this documentary on a big screen. It's incredible to see so many rare clips from Mary's movies and unseen pictorials shown tonight at the Regent Street Cinema (the site of the UK's first ever cinema) and still have the whole event feel thoroughly - respectable!

You know that thing called sex? It's not that shocking after all. And 70's Soho not as deeply seedy as perhaps you may have once thought (no, that's a lie - it actually once was!). But when you take the censorship away - censorship that makes you think you are watching the subversive and shocking - it's clear that much of the shock comes from the restriction on freedom, less so the content (a restriction on so many once taboo movies of the past). British censorship of adult cinema in Mary's day was excessive - and punishing. To adults, over 18, there should always be the right to choose what we watch, within the law and without harm to others. Because - why on earth shouldn't we be able to?

Mary herself always claimed she was 'born respectable' and to many of her fans, that was the case throughout her life: she loved people (perhaps too much!) and meeting her fans or looking after her family. More 'respectable' stars of the era who appeared alongside Mary in her films, only ever spoke of how lovely she was, or about having a cup of tea with her and having so much fun without even being aware that she was once an adult movie star (until they were told - and  then it didn't matter at all).

Mary, above all else, was a quiet soul at heart who cared most for animals (and was especially devoted to her dogs - she once even planned to train to become a veterinary nurse before the glamour modelling started up). But this star of the blue screen ended up obsessed with fading fame, her fading looks and ultimately (we are told) obsessed with death.

But now, many years after her passing, and with major editorials in the British newspapers about her life again making waves and rustling feathers (as the documentary premiers close to her old haunting ground of Soho) Mary Millington is back in the public eye. There has even been a full colour spread in The Sun this week (something that she never had in her lifetime). This revival is entirely down to one man, and a true champion of Mary's life and times - and that man is Simon Sheridan.



Narrated with calm enthusiasm by Dexter Fletcher and chock full of strikingly-realised visuals and playful depth of image (where even an erection leaves the page and floats before our eyes, and parts of classic exploitation film posters take on freedom of movement and drift  intriguingly towards us) the 111 minutes of this movie rush by.

It's an astonishingly reverent, nostalgic, heart-breaking, sexy and deeply poignant masterpiece of documentary film-making and deserves to be award-winning. It's a story not just of a girl who stripped her way to fame and film history, but also the story of a person with often low self-esteem and too many inner demons to be able to cope with, at the end - ultimately crushed by the weight of her own fame.

The film is also a document of a filmmaker's own personal obsession - for a strikingly beautiful suburban superstar's incredible life of fame and fortune in the sometimes seedy fast lane of yesterday's Soho. And most of all, it's a story that insists on the right to wear nothing at all - whenever you want!

Simon tells us, as a final word, that during the making of the film there were many strange coincidences - including Mary's favourite song being played on the radio as soon as he pulled up alongside the former site of her sex shop in Norbury. He also says he felt like Mary's presence was often alongside him, as he made the film - watching on. I think it's fair to say, if Mary Millington is also watching us all at the film's premier tonight, then she will be loving all the attention. She will be smiling at seeing so many of her friends and family remembering her life with fondness. And she will be at rest now, because this film really is a kind of closure and a new beginning in the Mary Millington story.

A family member had talked earlier in the night about how Mary often did get tutted at by some people back home for her sensational lifestyle, but mainly she was just loved and respected - it was (again!) just: 'Mary, being Mary'. And I think that sums up the whole life of Mary Millington. Mary - being Mary . .

Simon's film is a celebration of both sides of her far too short life (the suburban and the superstar) and the right of both to be at peace with one another.

And to never be ashamed - of anything.

Words: Mark Gordon Palmer

 

NOTE: THIS REVIEW WAS WRITTEN TO MATCH THE NUMBER OF MONEY SHOTS IN MISS BOHRLOCH AND FEATURED AT LEAST FIVE HAPPY ENDINGS. 

PICS BY MARK GORDON PALMER: SOHO PLAQUE UNVEILING, 'RAYMOND REVUEBAR RIP', 'SEX MAGAZINES IN SOHO SHOP WINDOW', 'Q&A' & '8mm - BETTER THAN BETAMAX!'

THE MARY MILLINGTON INVITATION IS THE COPYRIGHT OF SIMON SHERIDAN