In a 2022 review, Eddie Harrison (a contributor to The List) gave The Playbirds zero stars, characterising it as "grubby, bottom-rung British sexploitation" with a "sub- Giallo plot" and supporting cast made up of "slumming British comedy stars". He condemned the film's "deeply misogynist" tone, noting that while the striptease scenes "[objectify] women in the crudest possible way", the audience is drawn into a series of "vicarious 'thrills' as the same women are hunted down and brutally murdered". [1] Special-edition DVD / Blu Ray [ edit ] Hunt, Leon (2013). British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. Routledge. p.25. ISBN 9781136189364. 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. [1] 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. [3] 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. [2] Release and reception [ edit ] If that sounds tonally all over the shop, The Playbirds just about holds it together through sheer chutzpah. Imagine, if you will, The Sweeney as directed by Pete Walker or Derek Ford, with just a tang of giallo as detective Gavin Campbell (Yes, that’s right – one of ‘Esther’s boys’ from That’s Life) races in hot pursuit of the mystery assailant, not to mention the film’s downbeat ending.

NEW Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions – audio commentary by biographer Simon Sheridan and executive producer David Sullivan. In Bed with Josie Harrison Marks Documentary (21:40 in HD) – 2019 interview with the daughter of director George Harrison Marks. If you are in the North America, look out for US/Canadian flag icons on popular product listings for direct links.Extras: Language(s): English, Interactive Menu, Bonus Footage, Commentary: 'The Playbirds': Simon Sheridan (biographer) and Willy Roe (director); 'Queen of the Blues': Simon Sheridan and Allan Warren (actor); 'Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions': Simon Sheridan and David Sullivan (executive producer); 'Respectable: The Mary Millington Story': Simon Sheridan and Sam Dunn (BFI), Documentaries: 'Ten Million Dirty Words'; 'Mary On Location'; '8mmillington', Interviews: Josie Harrison Marks, Short films: 'Response' (1974), 'Wild Lovers' (1974), 'Party Pieces' (1974), 'Sex Is My Business' (1975); 'Mary Millington's World Striptease Extravaganza' (1981), Trailers Finally got round to watching the first of these discs (or is the documentary the last disc?) Educational and fascinating! Now I’ve got to resist some of the interview material to bring myself to watch the actual films! Your Best Bets for the week, new TV to Disc releases, B-movies, Cult Films, Family Films, Foreign Films, more Of course, Mary was only one of many involved in the 'sexploitation' sex comedies of the 1970s - perhaps the most culturally important, but still one of many. And there are plenty of other great, or not-so-great but similarly important, films in the genre too, which I'd love to celebrate in future. So many! I have plans for something very, very special next year, but you'll just have to wait for now. It's going to be the project I have always wanted to do. Maybe then I can retire from the world of 1970s' sex comedies forever!

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. NEW Ten Million Dirty Words – a brand new featurette about Harry Knights, the Nottingham-based porn writer who helped create Mary’s image. Emmanuelle in Soho prologue (06:37 in HD) – 1981 prologue added to the start of the US release of the movie. a b c d e f g h i Harrison, Eddie (6 November 2022). " The Playbirds". film-authority.com . Retrieved 8 November 2022. Mary Millington on Location” (27:04 in HD) – A featurette narrated by actress Judy Matheson about locations in Mary Millington’s life and movies such as the sex shop she managed.The release also gave me an opportunity to make some new documentary shorts, all of which relate to aspects of Mary's life: there are eight new documentaries, including Mary Millington On Location, which looks at the places she made the films; a look at audio recordings she made in 1977, called Aural Sex; plus new interviews with co-star Sally Faulkner, veteran glamour photographer George Richardson, and Josie Harrison Marks, who is the daughter of Come Play With Me's director. There's even a documentary on how I made Respectable. So there's something for everybody, I hope. 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. [7] 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 Simon Sheridan and Willy Roe. [8] See also [ edit ] Mary on Location – Then and Now’ travelogue revisiting the main locations in Mary’s life and films. The Playbirds is a bizarre fusion of b-movie thriller and exploitation spectacle only the British could make. Confessions From The David Galaxy Affair is mostly about star Alan Lake as a playboy bedding every attractive woman he comes across. None of the films hold up on their own if not for their rampant nudity and occasional sex.

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. For more about The Mary Millington Movie Collection and the The Mary Millington Movie Collection Blu-ray release, see the The Mary Millington Movie Collection Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on February 1, 2021 where this Blu-ray release scored 3.5 out of 5. Released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Mary Millington's death, this special edition Blu-ray box set (individually numbered and limited to 3,000 units) features Mary's most glamorous film roles, with new, stunning 2K restorations, including: As a new Blu-ray box set collating her films is released, its curator and her biographer, Simon Sheridan, explains all about Mary Millington, a pioneering personality of the 1970s.No such caveats for the last major feature film in this collection, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair. In The Playbirds it’s fair to say that Alan Lake’s charisma was put to great use, and he visibly relishes every scene he appears in, with charming brio; by comparison, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair is what happens when you give your lead actor free rein for all his most appalling excesses – problematic ain’t the word for some of ‘em – and Millington’s character barely troubles the narrative. A sad, depressing film, released two months prior to Millington’s suicide, and Lake’s last lead role before his tragic death by his own hand in 1984, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair is the twitching corpse of the British sex comedy at a time when its star had fallen, Columbia having pulled the plug on the Confessions series a year earlier. One wonders if the cunning stunts of Michael Armstrong or David McGillivray could have salvaged this turkey, but it’s doubtful. It’s sad to see the potential of The Playbirds squandered in this embarrassing dud – even Lake’s missus, the wonderful Diana Dors, phones it in.