In on the game… Games Lovers Play (1972)

Ah the Great British “sex comedy” a symbol of a time before when we were proud of our inhibitions and always keen to celebrate our kinks in the darkened communities of “private” Soho cinemas. There was a cinema club in Liverpool that used to advertise in the Echo; tantalising titles involving naughty night nurses and worldly window cleaners, Mary Millington, the alliterative British “niece” to America’s greatest sexual super power and a host of tightly-corseted, knowing beauties all smiling and “in on The Act…”

In reality, many of these films were little more than Carry ons with added nudity; relentlessly silly in order to off-set the slightest possibility of offense being taken but with enough pulchritude to ensure that the key demographic was satisfied and, on occasion, a plot worth following.

Well, on the first count, here we do have your actual Joanna Lumley (aged 24) revealing a not inconsiderable amount in pursuit of her no doubt considerate fee… As with another film covered on this blog, The Breaking of Bumbo, her agents seem to be on a drive to remove her youthful nudity yet the copy I made years ago on VHS seems to be the full Monty as it were which is apparently not the case with the current DVD release.

The full Lumley...

Is this important? You could argue that the sequences in question are key to both plots with Bumbo benefiting from the minute or so of cavorting that explains Bumbo’s devotion to Lumley’s character and there’s almost a naivety about the exposure. Here Joanna (I can’t really bring myself to call Ms L by her surname) is playing not only a sex worker, in modern terminology, but a character based on Fanny Hill no less. It’s a scarcely funny comedy with the sex but without it Games logical existence is pretty much negated…

Jeremy Lloyd and Joanna Lumley share a joke

What we have is a nostalgic 90 minutes that says as much about the watcher as it does about the almost quaint sensibilities which drove the creation of the film. I watched it because I was curious to see what the censors had denied my younger self and because I just like the period: call it comfort-watching… the equivalent of an arctic roll, a bag of Maltesers or a box set of On the Buses.

If nothing else, it gives the excellent Richard Wattis a chance to play against type… now that’s got your interest surely?

Lady Evelyn out talent spotting

Malcolm Leigh wrote and directed, so can take full responsibility, but he does a competent job. The story concerns the rivalry between two high-class madams, Mrs Hill (Diane Hart) and Lady Evelyn (Nan Munro).

The two ladies spend their time “talent spotting” young beauties from the idle rich, although it’s never explained what’s in it for the rich young things: surely not money which leaves open the possibility that the career in question is a vocational one (yeah… I know.).

The two madams clash

The two fall out over each other’s status and bet their best girls in a fair fight to seduce the most unlikely of males. Her ladyship choses her cross-dressing cousin, Jonathan Chatterley (Jeremy Lloyd) as the challenge for Fanny Hill (Joanna) to overcome whilst her competitor, Constance Chatterley (Penny Brahms) has to work with a Bishop (John Gatrell).

I’m less than clear why Lady Chatterley gets chosen as a prostitute – Fanny Hill’s profession is not misplaced though she was a victim of circumstance and not choice even in the Eighteenth Century.

The impressive Miss Brahms

Anyway, whilst Constance runs rings around the bishop, eventually winning him over with theological argument (really!), Fanny sets about her rather more difficult task by pretending to be a transsexual. This is the film’s best play with Lumley in her element as a kind of proto-Patsy with more balls (as it were) and Jeremy Lloyd playing it up for all his worth against a backdrop of some of the capital’s leading followers of the love that dare not dress down when there’s a party to attend.

Fanny charms the "girls"

Ultimately Cousin Jonathan is taken in and it’s all square after round one…

The stakes are raised as the girls are tasked with seducing the seemingly un-seducable Lothran (Richard Wattis) an antiques collector who seems more enamoured with people than objects. The girls move into his apartment block and begin to charm him.

Fanny shows Lothran around...

But, just as both get near to the game-winning breakthrough, Lothran runs away screaming “no, not alone, not alone…” You might have an idea where this is possibly heading but I couldn’t possibly reveal the denouement.

...and Contsnace gives him a lift.

Dusty verdict: You can decry the erotic sensibilities of the age but it also doesn’t do to measure them entirely against our current mind set – plus it’s not exactly clear how far the cause of sexual enlightenment has progressed in an era of equal opportunities commodification which still finds time to favour the male view.

The Lady ain't a tramp

As a period piece then Games Lovers Play is not without merits – a coherent narrative, well performed – and there are some funny sequences enhanced by a no-nonsense approach to the subject matter: it would be worse if the view was more “coy”.

Joanna Lumley is lovely as per usual and shows the comic instinct that eventually came to career fruition in Absolutely Fabulous. Penny Brahms is also good although she wasn’t to enjoy the same career longevity as her co-tart.

Ultimately the only way to evaluate films of this genre is to compare them with each other and you have to say that this film is perhaps less exploitative than the majority with its emphasis on the female leads and choice of the most unlikely male characters.

The DVD is now available from Amazon or Movie Mail but those who just want to see more of Joanna will have to look a bit harder or back to video!

Anachronism in the UK…The Breaking of Bumbo (1970)

The promise of this film far outweighs its delivery… it looks like it should be a smart satire on the British class system, military priviledge and the struggle for a new enlightenment but it ends up being just a bit irritating. Just about the only sympathetic characters are the “innocent” guardsmen played by the likes of Warren Clarke whilst pretty much every major character has only unresolved arguments to make or, in the case of “Bumbo” is a near vacuum – with no real substance or impact… you just don’t care that much.

Warwick, Fox and Williams

Bumbo (Richard Warwick) arrives with the Household Guards with the appearance of a slight outsider, there fully on merit but without the “natural” bearing of his mate, Billy (Jeremy Child), who whilst being part of “The Club” simply hasn’t achieved the grades. But we’re never quite clear who Bumbo is or what he really wants but then neither is he.

He clearly wants the beautiful Susie (Joanna Lumley who is very fetching in a red wig) if only for one thing, even though he convinces himself it’s also about her principles – a revolt for the sake of it with no specific agenda as far as I could see. Indeed, when at one point one of the working class guardsmen praises her bravery she smiles a childish grin as if all she’s really after is approval.

Take that, The Man!

But when Bumbo first encounters Susie and her friend Jock (a John Bird of no fixed accent… at least here) they are staging a protest at a society function in a wax-works and appear amusing and brazen. They throw the debs and young officers into confusion as they spout standard issue anarchy and melt the faces of waxwork Winnie, Napoleon and other notables.

Jock protests too much, methinks...

These anti-establishment stance shock tactics appear to Bumbo’s conflicted sense of honour, besides, Susie’s leather trousers are cut so precisely… he follows her home even though his leg gets a burn from Jock’s blazing paint stripper of truth.

Silk bandages for the injured soldier

Back in Susie’s apartment the three talk in psychedelic shorthand about the need to break free but Jack is so obviously a rebel without coherence talking in circular logic that never alights convincingly on any topic. Susie is genuine but what she wants is more to do with what she wants… and, at this moment that is Bumbo.

That's about it, Lumley lovers..

Jock leaves leaving Bumbo and Susie to complete a night of further discussion… it is here that some online commentators find most fault as a revealing sequence of Miss Lumley has been excised. Whilst I can’t pretend that that isn’t disappointing in of itself, it may also have helped to establish clearer motivations for both her and Bumbo.

As it is, Bumbo becomes converted to their cause and after sitting around debating the need for action turns up in support of whatever it is they’re for at a march earning the displeasure of his commander back at the barracks.

Bumbo makes the news at a march

Next Bumbo is persuaded to infiltrate the rugby team and to persuade the troops to support his in a grand gesture on the parade ground: they will all, as one, demonstrate their independence from the crushing discipline of the army mindset.

In fairness to Bumbo and to writer, director Andrew Sinclair who was a former Coldstream Guards officer and who also wrote the original book in 1959, the character expresses from the outset his wish to retain his personality: he doesn’t want to be processed.

Yet, after finding out that Susie has very quickly progressed beyond the sexual-interest stage of “love” to the platonic version which allows her to sleep with other partners… Bumbo feels more than a little let down. So does Susie who can’t understand his possessiveness: she still loves him but not in the way he wants… not in “that” way.

In spite of this Bumbo proceeds with his plan… can he succeed in launching a revolution from within? Will parade be the Battleship Potemkin helping to inspire wider social change or will he just end up making a fool of himself and falling back into his pre-ordained slot in upper class society?

Dusty verdict: I can easily understand why this film had only a very limited release at the time… it doesn’t fully explain itself and ends up being a bit confused. It does attempt to grasp at deeper meaning and the juxtaposition of fans at a heated Stamford Bridge with the cold discipline of the Guards shows what the army is really there for.

Bumbo explains to Billy that he’ll be just like his forebears – nothing will change even when the world has moved on the military mind is geared towards the maintenance of tradition. Yet Bumbo, broken though he may be, still starts to relish the lucky break that eventually comes his way: marriage to Sheila (Natasha Pyne) and her wealth and her privilege… Poor man to be so trapped.

There are good performances tucked away on the undercard… from Edward Fox as a maniacal officer Horwood and young Simon Williams as Crutcher. There are also a striking cameo from the recently-departed Warren Clarke as Guardsmen Andrews whilst Anouska Hempel passes by as a highly-convincing debutante.

Absolutely fabulous

Of the leads Joanna is the easy winner with an emotional agility and subtle comic touch that eludes the others and which flies someway above the quality of the material. Then, as they say in soccer, class will out and she has it.

There are also some lovely shots of period London – the docks near St Paul (long since demolished), the West End and Chelsea FC before they got their Russian billions and were a community club representing South West London pride...

You can buy Bumbo from Amazon or Movie Mail if you miss the sixties and like Joanna Lumley you can't really go wrong.

Richard Warwick and Anouska Hempel

The warehouses of St Paul's

Roddy's scotch mist…Tam-Lin aka The Devil's Widow (1970)

Tam-Lin, aka The Ballad of Tam-Lin, The Devil's Widow and The Devil's Woman… was the only film directed by Roddy McDowall and he took a break from playing in part four of the Planet of the Apes films to make it.

On this evidence it’s a shame he never got around to directing more: there’s genuine strangeness and charm about this film that is more genuinely unsettling than most outright horror films of the period.

With a screenplay by William Spier, the story is loosely based on the traditional Scottish poem The Ballad of Tam Lin and perhaps the multiple titles reflected the distributors’ difficulty in marketing such an unusual product. The original ballad dates to as early as 1549 and has evolved into many forms as young Tam, under the protection of the Queen of the Fairies looks to be rescued from sacrifice by a young woman who has stolen his heart.

Part of the music for McDowall’s film is provided by The Pentangle – a folk super-group featuring Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Danny Thomson, Jacqui McShee and Terry Cox  – and it’s possible that he came across the story through its popularity in the sixties folk boom. From trailblazer Anne Briggs wispily mystical performances of Young Tambling through to Fairport Convention’s more muscular Tam Lin off 1969’s Liege and Leif the story was sung again through the taverns and hipster coffee houses of London and beyond.

Stephanie Beacham

It is in the capital where this film starts with a gaggle of excited youngsters who live off and around an ultra-wealthy woman Michaela Cazaret (superbly played by the iconic Ava Gardner – no doubt one of Roddy’s many showbiz buddies). Her current favourite is one Tom Lynn (Ian McShane) who seems to be madly addicted to her intoxicating presence.

Michaela and Tom leave the comforts of their conjugal bed to lead their mobile party to their cars in preparation for a journey to Scotland. They look to be in Knightsbridge or somewhere similar and the cars include an Aston Martin DBS – another classic. One young man is desperate to speak to Michaela but she casts him aside.

The convoy travels along London Wall past St Alphage Tower (currently being demolished) and then find themselves rocketing up the empty motorways of the early seventies.

St Alphage Tower on the left... London Wall as was.

Once in Michaela’s immense Scottish castle they settle down to the business of having a good time… Georgia (Joanna Lumley) reads books and makes broad philosophical statements, Rose (Sinéad Cusack) plays with Tarot cards, whilst Caroline (Jenny Hanley) plays Frisbee with the boys and the unsettlingly childlike Sue (Madeline Smith) asks for a puppy. It’s the cream of 1970’s British acting starlets, with more to come…

The local vicar’s daughter, young Janet Ainsley (Stephanie Beacham) arrives with a dog as per Sue’s requests and looks on in awe at the young, beautiful and directionless crowd but is immediately unsettled by Tom (and likewise).

Jenny Hanley and Joanna Lumley

She’s not sure whether Sue will be the right sort of person to hand over her pet too but then Michaela arrives and casts her glamour over all. She asks Janet to name her price and in a rush she asks for £50… Michaela writes her a cheque with a rueful smile whilst her secretary, Elroy (Richard Wattis) tells the young girl that she’s missed a chance to impress his mistress.

Janet returns to the vicarage…and discusses the strange new visitors with her father (Cyril Cusack) who urges her to return the £50.

Out walking she encounters Tom – on a head-clearing walk nursing a bottle of brandy as cure for a massive hang-over from an unbridled night with his mistress. Here McDowall does something experimental and stop-motions events in a series of photographs – possibly reflecting Tom’s skill in that area: he views Janet’s beauty in a professional manner and wants to capture every moment?

Ian McShane and Stephanie Beacham

The images show the couple finally recognising their love for each other and you can guess what happens next. Afterwards the couple walk back but Tom refuses to let Janet near the castle grounds as if realising the influence that shapes his own feelings in a particular direction.

Tom returns to the castle but Michaela quickly senses what has happened and from now on a course is set as Tom beings to seek out his free will.

He goes to church in order to see Janet and is spotted by his rival in the group, Oliver (David Whitman), he rejects the latter’s offer of a lift…

Back at the castle the news has obviously been relayed and Oliver goads Tom and violence erupts much to Michaela’s displeasure… Meanwhile the faithful Elroy positively relishes the opportunity to point out some home truths to Tom as he details how the unexplained deaths of certain young men in expensive motor cars are linked to Michaela. Is this to be Tom’s future: finished off once he steps out of line and stops being useful?

Tom is stubborn though and vows to leave, Michaela sends him to a caravan near the Firth of Forth promising she’ll give him a truce of eight days before hunting him down. Meanwhile, Janet discovers she is pregnant and seeks help from the local abortionist who sends her off to Edinburgh.

There’s an edge to the story now as the full cruelty of the situation is starting to be revealed: what exactly is Michaela and is there any way she will let Tom go or is he as doomed as the rest of her former lovers?

The party's over...

No spoilers: The ending I won’t give away needless to say that events slip into psychedelic overdrive and the outline of the original ballad is loosely followed as things come to a head.

Dusty verdict: Tam Lin is an oddity that lingers in the memory. McDowall’s direction is fluent and full of invention whilst his cast deliver strong performances not least Miss Gardner, relishing the chance to play a most unusual baddy. Is she the Fairie Queen or some kind of witch or is she just a very wealthy woman with a penchant for lovin’ an’ leavin’ ‘em a bit dead?

The horror is not over and is all the more remarkable for that: had this been a Hammer film it would have been a lot more… obvious. Long out of print – I’m clinging onto my old video – Tam Lin has now been released on Blu-Ray in the US. It’s available from Amazon  here.

Rolls, Bristol, Aston and Jensen...

Jenny Hanley

Madeline Smith and David Whitman