Saucy! Secrets Of The British Sex Comedy (2024)
As recommended by
@James from London
Written, produced and directed by Simon Sheridan, and based on his book
Keeping The British End Up: Four Decades Of Saucy Cinema, this doc narrows the focus from the late-Sixties to the end of the Seventies.
As a British Generation X with an interest in British film of that era it's impossible not to be aware of some of the more mainstream examples (whether it's through experience or osmosis, an awareness of cheeky chappie Robin Askwith baring his bum while surrounded by topless buxom women is just one of those images in my memory). I probably only saw a couple, but the
Confessions and
Adventures franchises never really captured my attention in the way the much milder
Carry On series did. Just a few years ago I watched
Keep It Up Downstairs and thought it was dire:
It's basically Upstairs Downstairs meets soft core porn. The plot was dull. The sex scenes were naturally ugly men laying young tarts (there was a lesbian fantasy thrown in here and there. Not that this improved the situation). And - most importantly - it wasn't funny.
I plan to never see another female nipple as long as I live.
The reason for their lack of appeal compared with the tamer films is expanded upon in the documentary: in films like the
Carry Ons the comedy comes from sexual frustration, because everyone (or at least all the men and a few of the women) wants a bit but doesn't get it. In sex comedies, everyone is getting it and so it loses the tension, which means there's no interest.
All the same, the genre makes a surprisingly worthwhile study, representing a zeitgeist (several, really): Free love and sexual liberation (themselves said to be a by-product of the pill in the early-Sixties and the partial de-criminalisation of homosexual acts in 1967). Changes to the classification of films. Pornography laws. Variations in cinema attendance, and so on.
Several times, there are comments that "young people wouldn't understand" and "these films would not get made today", and that's very true. There are good reasons for this, but the fact that the films are even more verboten today than they were at the time only adds to the fascination of them as historical pop culture.
James did add the caveat that the documentary was more superficial than it could have been, and I'd agree. Still, I was particularly surprised by some of the female stars of the films who were interviewed, who mostly were nice, articulate, middle class ladies, accomplished in various fields of acting. They spoke pragmatically about their reasons for doing the films, and the degree of agency they had over what they did. The casting couch is acknowledged, with participants talking about being locked in rooms with randy executives or chased around a desk while the perpetrator's wife was just the other side of a curtain doing secretarial duties, but they invariably simply acknowledge that they said no because the part wasn't worth it to them. Françoise Pascal is justly proud of the fact that she chose not to do nudity and yet still got cast.
A big surprise was the involvement of
Crossroads co-creator Hazel Adair, who wrote several sex comedies under a male pseudonym. Another soapy connection was present with the inclusion of
The Stud (and the similarities between Joan Collins's character and Alexis are mentioned). Joan Collins is not present, but Oliver Tobias describes the sex scenes as just another day at the office.
It was refreshing to hear participants talk about Mary Whitehouse with such balance. It's said that she played a part and her image as the conservative Christian campaigner was as much a creation of the media as it was the real her. They also say she enjoyed the attention (though she was furious about porn magazine Whitehouse being named after her).
The two tragic figures presented here are actor Barry Evans and glamour model/porn star/sex shop owner/call girl/actress Mary Millington. Barry I mostly know from the sitcom
Mind Your Language, and we've discussed him a little over in the sitcom thread. Here there's much focus on him being conflicted due to his sexuality, and the contrast between his true self and his womanising
Adventures Of A Taxi Driver character. Even though he continued to work and I don't feel his career ended when he turned down further
Adventures sequels (as is intimated here), the mystery around his death is certainly baffling. I wasn't familiar with Mary Millington, but her story is certainly colourful and tragic. It's easy to see why she's the subject of several books and documentaries.
Stats are always fun. My favourite titbit here was that in 1976
Adventures Of A Taxi Driver was a bigger hit than Scorsese's
Taxi Driver (I'm guessing this applies to British box office, but still...). The three
Adventures... films are currently free on Prime, but I'm not sure I have the will to watch, even with the films being a who's who of British entertainment.
One film I am curious about is 1975's
Eskimo Nell, with its meta plot about a failed attempt to make an erotic film based on a saucy poem. Not only does also offer a bit of insight into the making of sex comedies - including the concept of making different cuts for different markets - it's a rare genre exception in that it actually looks as though it may be funny. Even the BFI name it the "best place to start" in their handy
guide to British smut.
It probably goes without saying there are brief flashes of boobs and bums in the trailer for the documentary.
