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The Playbirds
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Wikipedia article
'The Playbirds' is a 1978 British sexploitation film, made by Irish-born director Willy Roe and starring 1970s pin-up Mary Millington alongside Glynn Edwards, Suzy Mandel and Windsor Davies. It was the official follow-up to 'Come Play with Me', one of the most successful of the British sex comedies of the 1970s, which also starred Millington.
Plot
In London, Scotland Yard detectives Jack Holbourne and Harry Morgan investigate the serial murders of models featured in the pornographic men's magazine 'Playbirds'. They identify four suspects: the magazine's publisher, Harry Dougan; photographer Terry Day; a street preacher called Hern; and anti-pornography campaigner George Ransome MP. To draw out the killer, Holbourne and Morgan decide to send in an undercover policewoman posing as one of Dougan's models; following "auditions" at the Yard, in which the candidates are made to perform striptease, WPC Lucy Sheridan is recruited and infiltrates the world of 'Playbirds'. Ransome kills himself after being caught spying on the models, while Hern is arrested on suspicion of being the murderer. The film ends with Lucy receiving a surprise visit from a man she assumes to be Hern, but who reveals himself to be the preacher's twin brother and strangles Lucy in her bath.
Cast
* Mary Millington ... WPC Lucy Sheridan
* Alan Lake ... Harry Dougan
* Glynn Edwards ... Inspector Holbourne
* Derren Nesbitt ... Jeremy
* Suzy Mandel ... Lena
* Windsor Davies ... Assistant Police Commissioner
* Penny Spencer ... WPC Andrews
* Gavin Campbell ... Inspector Harry Morgan
* Kenny Lynch ... Police Doctor
* Sandra Dorne ... Dougan's Secretary
* Dudley Sutton ... Hern
* Alec Mango ... Ransome
* Pat Astley ... Doreen
* Ballard Berkeley ... Trainer
* Michael Gradwell ... Terry Day
* Anthony Kenyon ... Dolby
* Ron Flangan ... Wilson
* Andr Trottier ... Kenny
* John M. East ... Media Man
* Gordon Salkilld ... Police Photographer
* Nigel Gregory ... Expert 1
* Tom McCabe ... Expert 2
* Pat Gorman ... Expert 3
* Susie Silvey ... WPC Taylor
* Cosey Fanni Tutti ... Extra (uncredited)
* Howard Nelson ... Caped man (uncredited)
* Tony Scannell ... Man at depot (uncredited)
Production
Filmed over four weeks in the winter of 1977, 'The Playbirds' was the official follow-up to 'Come Play with Me', which also starred Mary Millington. In 'The Playbirds', Millington plays an undercover policewoman investigating the murders of models from David Sullivan's magazine 'Playbirds'. The title sequence shows Millington walking through Soho when it was at the height of its domination by the sex industry, giving a visual record of the district's history. Millington collaborated with director Willy Roe on two further sexploitation pictures, 'Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair' and 'Queen of the Blues', both released theatrically in the summer of 1979.
Release and reception
The film ran in London for 34 consecutive weeks and took 177,000.
In a contemporary review for 'The Monthly Film Bulletin', Clyde Jeavons summed up the film as "standard British sex fare thinly disguised as a police-thriller of the old Scotland Yard variety". On the performances of the cast, he commented that Millington "speaks her lines as methodically as she strips, while one or two good actors like Glynn Edwards stand around looking suitably shamefaced." 'Films Illustrated' said that despite the film's sexual content it resembled "an old-time British second feature transplanted to the '70s".
Special-edition DVD / Blu Ray
'The Playbirds' was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 9 August 2010 by Odeon Entertainment. The film has been digitally remastered and the disc features an extensive stills gallery, production notes written by historian Simon Sheridan, plus 'Mary Millington's World Striptease Extravaganza' (1981) and 'Response', a short lesbian film starring Mary Millington, made in 1974. The film was released on Blu Ray in 2020 as part of the Mary Millington Movie Collection. The Blu Ray was released by Screenbound Pictures and has audio commentary by biographer Simon Sheridan and director Willy Roe.
See also
*Emmanuelle in Soho
*Pornography in the United Kingdom
References
'Bibliography'
*'Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema' by Simon Sheridan (fourth edition) (Titan Publishing, London) (2011)
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