{"id":3048,"date":"2014-12-09T13:10:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T13:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2015-03-18T12:06:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T12:06:35","slug":"exclusive-mary-millingtons-party-pieces-rediscovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/?p=3048","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Mary Millington’s ‘Party Pieces’ Rediscovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Millington was, unquestionably,\u00a0the most successful female British box office star of late-1970s cinema, but aside from her big-screen adventures she made a number of pornographic productions on 8mm for the home entertainment market. But the question always arises as to how many of these films did she actually make? With a number of \u2018lost\u2019 8mm films resurfacing in recent years \u2013 including another one this month \u2013 it might be a good time to look at what\u2019s actually out there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Miss<\/a>What is certain is the fact that Mary\u2019s first ever film was Miss Bohrloch<\/em>, shot in 1970 by director John Lindsay for Charlie Brown\u2019s Frankfurt-based Tabu company. Miss Bohrloch<\/em> was all-out hardcore, with Mary performing in every single sexual permutation with two long-haired Euro-boys. Although Mary had initially basked in the critical and commercial success of the film on the Continent, it did not lead to a long-relationship with the Tabu label. Instead, Mary stuck with John Lindsay who starred her in four more hardcore films for the copycat-sounding Taboo label, financed by tubby Australian Charles \u2018Chuck\u2019 Sloman (initially using the more glamorous \u2018Karl Ordinez\u2019 moniker). These films were shot both in the UK and Holland and included Betrayed<\/em>, Oral Connection<\/em>, Special Assignment<\/em> and Oh, Nurse!<\/em> Mary categorically only did these four productions for Taboo, as confirmed by Sloman in a 1981 interview conducted for Late Night Video<\/em> magazine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Special<\/a>So did Mary turn her back on heterosexual hardcore porn thereafter? It seems so. Whilst Mary had embraced her hardcore career early on, it transpired it wasn\u2019t a role she was wholly comfortable with. David Sullivan knew all about Mary\u2019s 8mm background before they met, but he told me this year that when he and Mary started dating in 1974 she begged him not to watch Miss Bohrloch<\/em>. \u201cShe told me that it wasn\u2019t the \u2018real\u2019 Mary performing on screen\u201d he explained. \u201cSo I never saw it back then. In fact, it was only in 2014 that I finally watched it on the internet.\u201d When I first interviewed Mary\u2019s one-time publicist John M East, in the late-1990s, he assured me Mary had told him she\u2019d appeared in \u201cabout 18\u00a0hardcore films\u201d, although, I now realise this is blatantly untrue. I genuinely believe Mary only made five explicit shorts \u2013 one for Brown\u2019s Tabu, and a further four for Lindsay\u2019s Taboo.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with Cinema Blue<\/em> magazine in 1977, Mary claimed that prior to shooting Come Play with Me<\/em>, she had only made \u201csix shorts and a Danish feature. Blue movies are great. Educational and great tension relievers!\u201d The ‘Danish’ film she mentions is actually Swedish –\u00a0Private Pleasures<\/em>, a feature-length production in which Mary has lesbian sex with actor Ted Cegerblad’s on-screen girlfriend\u00a0Elona Glenn. Tellingly, her hardcore scene in Come Play with Me<\/em> was with another\u00a0female too, co-star Penny Chisholm.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what are these \u201csix shorts\u201d Mary talks of? Is Mary hinting at a sixth hardcore 8mm film or is she simply getting her sums wrong? Probably, the latter. After all, she conveniently forgets to mention several of her other big screen films (Eskimo Nell<\/em>, Erotic Inferno<\/em>, Intimate Games<\/em> or Keep It Up Downstairs<\/em>), all of which she\u2019d shot by this time, either. Of course, Mary did appear in softcore 8mm films too. She made at least two for George Harrison Marks \u2013 Sex Is My Business<\/em> (set in a sex shop) and Blonde & Black<\/em> (an interracial lesbian short) and yet another lesbian duo, Response<\/em>, for Russell Gay. Additionally, Mary appeared in a couple of UK-made productions for Mountain Films. These include Wild Lovers <\/em>and another obscurity, newly rediscovered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/a><\/p>\n

My friend Colin Lane\u00a0\u2013 an 8mm collector extraordinaire \u2013 recently purchased an anonymous film reel featuring a familiar blonde, and asked me to take a look at it. The film is called Party Pieces <\/em>(aka Foursome<\/em>), a monochrome Mountain Films production, probably dating from 1974. Following an almost identical plot to Wild Lovers<\/em>, it features four participants (three female, one male) who initiate a bit of impromptu shagging during a festive get-together. One of the performers is Mary, whilst the other three actors are a hairy, tattooed man in a paisley shirt and necktie, and two bubbly brunettes (one with straight-hair, the other one\u00a0with wavy).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/a>\"Mary<\/a><\/p>\n

The action begins on a suburban staircase strewn with party balloons and streamers. It\u2019s an awkwardly-shot sequence with the four actors crammed into a bizarrely tight space. Wine is poured into glasses, party poppers are fired and everybody is having a good giggle. Mary, in particular, is laughing and joking with her friends, and has probably never looked happier, or more relaxed,\u00a0on screen. After an interminable preamble, the party-goers divide into two couplings \u2013 Mary remains at the top of the stairs with the wavy-haired brunette, whilst the other girl and her swarthy fella sneak off to a nearby bedroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/a>\"Mary<\/a><\/p>\n

Naturally enough, nothing much happens in this strictly softcore affair. Mary and her female companion enjoy some lesbian groping on the stairs, and their heterosexual chums engage in flaccid bonking on the bed. Like Wild Lovers<\/em>, the direction is somewhat amateurish, performers look straight at the camera,\u00a0and the sex scenes are jarringly intercut at regular junctures with a still image of two half-filled wine glasses. Towards the end of the film, Mary and her girlfriend enter the bedroom;\u00a0they all get stuck-in, before Mary ends up shagging the man, whilst the two brunettes awkwardly look on. Then everything fades to black and it\u2019s all over.<\/span><\/p>\n

What really stands out is Mary\u2019s undeniable magnetism on screen. Even if she hadn\u2019t gone on to become a huge star, her performance is utterly mesmerising compared to her lacklustre co-stars. It\u2019s not just the sight of Mary\u2019s beautiful body being exposed on the staircase; it\u2019s her carefree, giggly charm which imbues Party Piece<\/em> with pure magic.<\/span><\/p>\n

So who actually directed this mini-epic? It certainly wasn\u2019t George Harrison Marks, Russell Gay or John Lindsay, but thanks to the help of my friend Pete Walker, (once a glamour film director himself, before he helmed cult horror classics like House of Whipcord<\/em>), I\u2019ve uncovered the truth about Mountain Films and the unlikely duo who left behind a career in ladies\u2019 fashion to become pornographers. I shan\u2019t be revealing any more for now, but the true story will be\u00a0exposed when a brand new transfer of Wild Lovers<\/em> appears on the Eskimo Nell<\/em> blu-ray, released in early-2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/a>Party Pieces<\/em> has enjoyed a wash-and-brush-up too; I\u2019ve\u00a0had it completely digitally restored at Pinewood Studios this past week, and it looks stunning. It was gratifying to watch a little 40-year-old porn film being spruced up in a studio right opposite\u00a0a room where post-production on the multi-million dollar\u00a0Star Wars: The Force Awakens <\/em>was taking place. I think Mary would’ve liked that. <\/span>But all this doesn\u2019t solve the problem of knowing just how many more Mary Millington 8mm productions are still out there. Is Party Pieces<\/em> really the final missing ‘piece’ in the Millington film jigsaw, or are we about to be surprised by\u00a0an even bigger\u00a0discovery? Only time will tell…<\/span><\/p>\n

All words, research\u00a0and photos strictly \u00a9 Simon Sheridan 2014-2015<\/span><\/p>\n

Special thanks, as always, to the fantastic Colin Lane.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Millington was, unquestionably,\u00a0the most successful female British box office star of late-1970s cinema, but aside from her big-screen adventures she made a number of pornographic productions on 8mm for the home entertainment market. But the question always arises as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,38,6,23,21,133,73,134,109],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-8mm-films","tag-come-play-with-me","tag-george-harrison-marks","tag-john-lindsay","tag-miss-bohrloch","tag-party-pieces","tag-response","tag-sex-is-my-business","tag-wild-lovers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3761,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marymillington.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}