Come Play with Me

COME PLAY WITH ME is an astonishingly awful British sex comedy from George Harrison Marks, never known for making quality productions in the first place. This one's an interminable nudie feature set in a health resort, where various characters come together and butt heads in a story I can't make head nor tail of. The astonishing thing about all this is the number of well established and familiar faces they've roped into appearing; you don't expect the likes of Irene Handl and Alfie Bass to feature but here they are, dragging their reputations through the mud all the same. Non-stop nudity from the likes of Mary Millington does very little to make up for the appalling quality of this deeply unfunny production.

This movie - which amazingly was a box office smash in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s (it ran non-stop between 1977 and 1981 in London's West End) - embodies everything that was bad about British so-called `sex films' of the era - namely a lame and tedious plot, a second-rate cast of comedy has-beens and never-were's, poor acting and very little actual sex and nudity. A version of the film containing very steamy and explicit sex scenes was actually shot, but in the puritanical climate of late-70s Britain with its notoriously restrictive anti-porn legislation sometimes known as the `Limp Dick Laws' (and sadly things haven't really changed much in the intervening 20-odd years), this was deemed unacceptable for screening to UK cinema audiences and never saw the light of day (no sex please – we're British!!). Instead, the only version of this movie that has ever been released is this sorry excuse for a film, which concentrates more on the pathetic, supposedly `funny' antics of a group of elderly crooks and the septugenarian matron at a health spa, being brightened up only occasionally by stocking-clad beauties portraying nurses. These girls are the film's only redeeming feature and indeed they should have been what the movie was all about. Instead, the few (I think there are about 4) short `sex' scenes have been so brutally edited that they come to a sudden, grinding halt just as things are getting warmed up, and we're back to the silly goings-on involving the `comedy' characters. And silly they truly are. It's almost painful to watch sometimes, encapsulting stupid, slapstick `mucky postcard'-style antics in the very worst traditions of the equally lamentable `Confessions' and `Carry On' movie series of the same era. The publicity blurb surrounding the movie at the time of its release claimed that it was `entertainingly funny and blushingly saucy', `fantastically erotic', `the sexiest sex comedy screened' and `of a highly explicit nature'. The makers should have been hauled before the courts on charges of multiple violations of the Trade Descriptions Act, because it is nothing of the sort. According to a recently published book about one of the film's more glamorous stars, the late and sadly missed Mary Millington, only one print of the uncut and unseen version is known to still exist, which is a pity. It's perhaps being a little optimistic to hope that this will one day appear on DVD as a more fitting testimony to the Mary Millington legacy.

this makes the worst Carry ON movie look like Classic Billy Wilder.George Harrison Marks is the most awful actor ive seen though his performance does make you laugh at him.the script is rotten and the song is one of the worst in movie history.1 out of 10

Given that this film ran for years in certain London cinemas, I'm intrigued as to what spectators were expecting (and I can only assume that many were mightily disappointed). While the US's Deep Throat constructed a skeletal plot on which to hang its extreme sexual action, Come Play with Me does the reverse: it is plot heavy on its focus on two forgers on the run (and how the government attempts to counter the flood of their fake notes into the UK), pursued by London gangsters to a failing Scottish Spa, run by Irene Handel. Like many 1970s sex films, this one features many veteran British actors (Alfie Bass, Henry McGee, Bob Todd, and Ronald Fraser), but it also boasts (fairly lengthy) musical numbers and general farce-like scenarios (and an awful recurring song on the soundtrack). However, such nonsense is punctuated by the periodic appearances of scantily-clad or disrobed 'nurses,' all of whom are (for some reason - it is not that clear why they go along with it) charged with revitalising the spa. In this regard, there are sex scenes, but nothing that much beyond the likes of the Confessions films (bar one or two scenes), and compared to its American counterparts, Come Play with Me is pretty tame (which again fails to explain its four-year run in one London cinema - clearly the hype machine was well operated). The writing is weak (and features a strange subplot focused on the government official, Podsnap, that goes nowhere as he tries (in disguise) to track down the forgers). In terms of performances, they are hammy (such as actor/director George Harrison Marks in a bizarre wig and fake teeth), or just on an amateur level (although Alfie Bass is good, but he always was), and if the draw of Mary Millington is the magnet to seek out this film, prepare to be disappointed, as she is not in many scenes. So, a curio from a curious cinematic British age, but its reputation far exceeds its delivery.

Years ago, I saw SEX & FAME: THE MARY MILLINGTON STORY and learned about this tragically doomed (and victimized!) British pseudo Marilyn Monroe, and while researching this on the Internet decades later, I opted to purchase COME PLAY WITH ME. Only to learn ominously from the helpful included booklet that Mary scantly (!) appears in the movie. And what a mess this movie is! I concur with Mr Riley's 2001 review word for word. Why they had to have caricatures as main characters, is, well, not actually beyond me. It's how the infantile repressed mind works when finally given an opportunity to express itself.

False advertising to the highest degree. Does an injustice to sex comedies. Avoid all these trashy films from that era like the plague.

By way of constructive criticism, the movie needed a much younger male cast, somewhat dashing, in the lead parts. As it is, all they had going in the right direction, were the girls themselves. A total script rewrite, a total plot rethink. In short, a colonic irrigation for the feeble minds behind this atrocity. Starting with George Harrison Marks. Who is deceased, so I shall attempt to retain a modicum of class by not speaking ill of the dead. But really, a much better movie could have been made just from their starting point of a dozen or so stocking-clad dolly birds. Anything less risible would have been a marvelous improvement. And doubtlessly no-one would refute that previous sentence.

On the plus side is that night-club performer in the semi-contorted pose early on in the movie when that fat little guy goes to Burlesque. The one with the black lingerie Valentine designs to cover her, uhm, modesty. Wow. That ribcage, and those 1977 natural breasts. Nowadays we don't see sculpted waists like that (AnnaLynne McCord of 90210 excluded of course) and breasts are all too often surgically enhanced. Another nice one in this flick is that girl in the gymnasium who walks away across the screen on tip-toe. Another wow.

However, nothing can move me from giving this one the lowest score possible, and you know what? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, it didn't even deserve a 1, but dear ol' IMDb is too kind- hearted a soul to have included 0/zero/zilch/big fat nothing as an option.