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. 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. a b Sweet, Matthew (24 November 2000). "No sex please; we're bored". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 September 2017. 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] Hunt, Leon (1998). British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. Routledge. ISBN 9780415151832.

Simon Sheridan (2015). "The Fact of Fiction: 'Come Play with Me' in Print". Mary Millington . Retrieved 22 February 2018. NEW Ten Million Dirty Words – a brand new featurette about Harry Knights, the Nottingham-based porn writer who helped create Mary’s image. 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]

See also

Confessions of a Pixie – an interview with Josie Harrison Marks, the daughter of Come Play With Me’s director George Harrison Marks. In 2008, an exhibition of the work of the late glamour photographer Fred Grierson was held in London, which included several little-seen pictures of Millington taken by Grierson at June Palmer's Strobe Studios in the early 1970s. [ citation needed]

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. Respectable: The Mary Millington Story ( 2015), an in-depth documentary chronicling her extraordinary life We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.

David Sullivan's magazines were often undated, as such the only way of dating them is by which Sullivan-produced films were being promoted inside the magazines, i.e. a Sullivan magazine which promotes Come Play With Me would be from 1976/1977, ones promoting The Playbirds would be circa 1978, and ones promoting Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair would be from 1979. See also [ edit ]

Respectable - The Mary Millington Story". BFI. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016 . Retrieved 3 April 2016. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. The film received its world premiere at London's Regent Street Cinema in April 2016. [34] A DVD of the film was released in the UK on 2 May 2016. [35] Selected filmography [ edit ] Firstly, I must tell you, compiling this new Mary Millington collection of films on Blu-ray has been my dream job! I've curated the whole box-set with the fantastic team at Screenbound Pictures. I've been asking them to remaster Mary's movies for years, and now it's happened. I don't care if anybody gets sniffy about Mary's films, because they're actually hugely culturally significant. These movies kept the British movie industry going through some pretty dark times - I absolutely believe they deserve to be restored, so I'm thrilled to bits about it. They look better now than ever.

Come Play With Me: Part 3 (1982): unrelated Swiss sex film again directed by Dietrich, re-titled by Tigon and David Sullivan and promoted as a second "sequel" to the earlier film. The gatefold sleeves for the Mary record are handmade, with hand pulled screen print artwork with sleeve notes by journalist and documentary film-maker Simon Sheridan. Screenbound Pictures: Come Play With Me and The Playbirds Restoration Comparison". Blu-ray.com. 1 April 2020 . Retrieved 13 October 2020. We also have Queen Of The Blues (1979) and posthumous film Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions ( 1980), which is the most eye-opening of the lot. The set also contains my 2015 movie Respectable: The Mary Millington Story, in which I chronicled her amazing life through interviews with her family, friends, lovers and co-stars. I think it's a nice bookend to Mary's career and I'm very proud that it's part of the set. Keep collections to yourself or inspire other shoppers! Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections - they may also appear in recommendations and other places.

Respectable: The Mary Millington Story’– audio commentary by director Simon Sheridan and the BFI’s Sam Dunn. Babington, Bruce (2001). British Stars and Stardom: From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery. Manchester University Press. p.205. ISBN 9780719058417.

Come Play With Me

NEW Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions – audio commentary by biographer Simon Sheridan and executive producer David Sullivan. If you are in the North America, look out for US/Canadian flag icons on popular product listings for direct links. In 1979, Millington died aged just 33. Her suicide followed a period of depression and a family bereavement, but her note to friend and lover David Sullivan (now owner of West Ham United) suggests she felt harassed by police and feared being framed.