Striptease Extravaganza / Mary Millington's Striptease Extravaganza

Or the uses and abuses of montage...

One of the key divisions in film theory is between proponents of the long take and proponents of montage. The use of the long take is usually associated with realism, and entails the presentation of blocks of space and time where the relationships between images emerge 'naturally'. Montage, by contrast, is associated with formalism, and entails the construction of relationships between otherwise disconnected images, perhaps in the service of another (higher) reality.

I mention this because Striptease Extravaganza / Mary Millington's Striptease Extravaganza is an exercise in the latter, albeit one which few montage theorists would likely want to take as an illustration of their idea(l)s.

First of all, there are those titles: Millington friend / exploiter / enabler John M. East introduces the film, proclaiming that Millington was a great striptease artist who made a profound impression on the form. As evidence he presents some scenes from Queen of the Blues, the last film that she made before her 1979 suicide.

But, if you don't care about Millington, or don't find dead women sexually attractive, it's then on to the main attractions of the other, sans Millington, title: Comedian Bernie Winters and 16 women supposedly competing for the stripper of the year title, £1000 and a movie contract.

Then there is the complete dissociation between what is happening on stage and the reaction shots of the audience. The latter, you see, have also been taken from Queen of the Blues, although unlike the introduction this is not stated. If you look carefully there are never any establishing shots which show the performers and the audience together, nor any pans or tracks from one to the other.

Then we have the complete dissociation between the pianist and drummer on stage and the music we hear, reinforced for those familiar with other David Sullivan product of the time by the re-use of cues from Emmanuelle in Soho. (Some of the cues do have a pleasing Nico Fidenco type vibe to them, though, and wouldn't be out of place in a Laura Gemser vehicle)

Turning to Emmanuelle in Soho, we also have its two female leads, Mandy Miller / Quick and Julie Lee, amongst the 16 strippers. The former is introduced as Vicky from Sweden, the latter as Julie from Hong Kong. Neither wins through to the semi-finals, though Winters does announce Julie as one of the semi-finalists even if she isn't actually present on stage.

Nor does either speak. In Lee's case this is presumably because her Yorkshire accent would have demolished the lie that she was from Hong Kong.

Not, however, that any of those we do hear speak make any attempt to present themselves as being from Turkey, France or wherever else 'exotic'.

A reason why they wouldn't is that not being white British often means being subjected to racist 'humour': Vicky from Turkey is a 'Chapati' while Maxine “from Botswana” can be distinguished from Cathy “from South England” by being “the darker one”.

In fairness, however, Winters also does some self-deprecating/hating Jewish jokes.

Then we have the incogruity of some of the strippers doing paired routines despite this supposedly being a competition.

Then there is the sudden injection of some cynical realism when one of them, Cathy, proclaims in a voice-off that she had better win since she had given the main judge a blow-job. This leads to further re-use of outtakes from Emmanuelle in Soho.

Cathy does, however, win the competition.

Art imitating Life?

The losers, meanwhile, must also include anyone who ever went to see the film on its original release, for entertainment...

Queen of the Blues

Even by the low standards of the 1970s British sex film this is a bottom of the barrel production. Bankrolled by porn magnate David Sullivan as a star vehicle for Mary Millington, who plays the title role, it was produced and directed by Willy Roe.

It's a sixty-minute piece that’s too long to work as a short, yet is too short to be a feature.

Rather than presenting a narrative punctuated with strip and comedy routines, it's more strip and comedy routines punctuated by a narrative, one that doesn’t really develop before abruptly ending with a deus ex machina.

Basically gangster Roscoe sends two of his heavies (one played by the inimitable Milton Reid, the other by future Hi-De-Hi fixture Felix Bowness) to extort protection money from the Blues club, not realising that it is owned by another gangster (Fawlty Towers' Ballard Berkeley) who duly makes this known.


Reid and Bowness

Another subplot, invoking a ghost haunting the place, is even less developed.

We get eight or so minutes of backstage chatter and strip routines before the first couple of minutes of plot. Then we get another couple of minutes of stripping, followed by John M. East doing a Max Miller impersonation as the club’s compere, followed by Millington doing her first number, admittedly intercut with the first proper exchange between the compere and the would-be extortionists, followed by some more routines.


Can't act, can't dance, can't sing about sums it up

25 minutes have elapsed by this point and the total story content is probably about four minutes tops.

There are some points of interest nonetheless: The strip routines make the connection to the cinema of attractions clear, as do the constant cutaways to the diegetic audience (curiously the same despite the action supposedly taking place on different nights) and the Music Hall nature of East's routines (see also Come Play with Me).


East does Max Miller

The strippers' remarks backstage are also oddly at odds with the illusion of glamour: “What’s the fascination? Surely when you’ve seen one set of tits you’ve seen them all?!”

Argento fans may also care to note that Geraldine Hooper, who plays Massimo Ricci in Deep Red, is credited as the club’s receptionist.

The pressbook for the film, distributed by Tigon, describes scenes that are not actually present and, one suspects, were never filmed either.

Hellcats: Mud Wrestling

Or, from Konga to Queen Kong

Not the 1976 Frank Agrama entry but the American female wrestler, Dee Booher, of the same name and a film that makes even Agrama's monstrosity look accomplished by comparison.

For what we have here, as the title indicates, is a short on the subject of mud wrestling, a sports entertainment that sees scantily clad women rolling around in mud for the pleasure of a mostly male and plebian audience .

The drama is provided by the US versus UK angle and its provision of the necessary villain and hero role functions, all played with appropriate excess (cf Roland Barthes' famous essay in Mythologies).

The main points of interest are sociological and historical rather than aesthetic - unless, of course, seeing women rolling around in mud gives you a particular thrill.

And that, I suppose, that was what the film-makers were banking upon.

For bankrolling Hellcats: Mud Wrestiling was none other than David Sullivan, one of the UK's biggest porn barons. He was the man who specialised in the bait and switch, of promising the punters one thing - usually then-illegal hardcore material - and giving them another - the same old softcore as last time and, if they hadn't wised up yet, the time before that.

With a plethora of magazines to uncritically hype his wares it was a winning strategy.

One of the few occasions on which Sullivan himself was taken for a ride was by veteran nude photographer Harrison Marks on Come Play with Me, a bizarre combination of 70s softcore sex comedy and old-style music hall that looked all but unsaleable.

But thanks to his magazines' ceaseless promotion of the film and its nominal star, Mary Millington, along with keeping it in one of his cinemas for four years solid, Sullivan still managed to somehow make the film profitable. (Among the posters for other films featured within Hellcats, even the not so sharp eyed can spot one for Come Play with Me.)

It was around this time that Sullivan met John M. East, the disreputable member of a respectable theatrical family. Their association outlived Millington's suicide, with East going on to appear in other productions by Sullivan's Roldvale company, within which the porn mogul also sought to find a replacement for his most profitable but now dead asset.

East is the writer on Hellcats: Mud Wrestling and conducts the on-screen interviews - with an admirably straight face, it must be said, given the preposterousness of his subjects - while the film might be read as a vehicle both for its 'sport' and for another porn performer, Vicky Scott.

Incredible though it may seem, Hellcats: Mud Wrestling may not even represent the nadir of the British sexploitation film. Its companion pieces Queen Kong: The Amazonian Woman and Foxy Female Boxers would also have to be considered contenders...