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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. 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! Scientists have long been stumped by sex in serotine bats, or Eptesicus serotinus. The reasons become obvious from a glance at their anatomy. The male’s erect penis is enormous and ends with a heart-shaped head that is seven times wider than the female’s vagina.
Simon Sheridan is a writer, broadcaster and filmmaker, as well as being Mary Millington's biographer. He is the world's leading authority on British sexploitation cinema and has written several books on the subject, including Come Play With Me: The Life And Films Of Mary Millington, X-Rated and Keeping The British End Up.Mary was actually a former veterinary nurse from Surrey, who stumbled into pornography quite accidentally; initially the hardcore variety and then softcore, which is not the usual career trajectory for actresses in that business. She had few inhibitions about sex and nudity, and after making some immensely successful 8mm films in Germany and The Netherlands, Mary began a relationship with publisher David Sullivan, who promoted her relentlessly in his stable of magazines, the most famous of which was Whitehouse - a cheeky sideswipe at Mary Whitehouse, the infamous pro-censorship campaigner. By the mid-1970s Mary started securing small supporting roles in British comedies like Eskimo Nell ( 1975) and Keep It Up Downstairs ( 1976). With Sullivan's help she soon elevated to more significant 'above the title' roles in Come Play With Me ( 1977) and The Playbirds ( 1978). That's how she gained a much wider audience.
Respectable: The Mary Millington Story ( 2015), an in-depth documentary chronicling her extraordinary life 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.Months later, another message arrived for Fasel, this time from Ukraine. Researchers at a bat rehabilitation centre in Kharkiv had their own footage that seemed to show bats mating without penetration. In total, the team now had video from 97 mating events – 93 from the Dutch church and four from the rehabilitation centre.
The author hopes that the exhibition will “encourage, and entertain, and enlighten” visitors. “I never dreamt, when I first started writing, that I’d have an exhibition going on in the British Library,” she says. “It does feel totally surreal”.
Sexploitation
Her most famous film was Come Play With Me - almost a film genre all to itself! In a nutshell, the plot follows a couple of banknote forgers who are on the run. Hiding out at a stately home being run as a health farm, they find it is almost entirely staffed by sexy young women. There's an unexpected song and dance routine in the middle of the film, plus some fairly explicit sex scenes - certainly a world away from the likes of Carry On Camping! Rhysida said the data was “exclusive, unique and impressive” and that it would be sold to a single buyer. It set a deadline for bids of 27 November.
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