Eskimo Nell

ESKIMO NELL is a one-of-a-kind British sex comedy farce looking at the workings of the film industry. It's certainly a rather jumbled production, full of hit and miss humour, in which a group of idealistic young men strive to make a film and come across various unscrupulous characters along the way.

There's a wealth of talent involved in this one both in front of and behind the cameras which alone makes it a worthwhile watch. The movie was directed by a youthful Martin Campbell, cutting his teeth decades before he'd direct the likes of big Hollywood blockbusters like CASINO ROYALE. Exploitation king Stanley Long came up with the story, while one-time infant terrible of British cinema Michael Armstrong (MARK OF THE DEVIL) wrote and stars.

There are many familiar faces in supporting roles, including a turn for later TV favourite Christopher Timothy playing a shy young virgin writer. Christopher Biggins is here alongside Katy Manning (DR WHO), Anna Quayle, Stephanie Cole, Derek Martin, Mary Millington (in a one-scene striptease) and the delightful Rosalind Knight (CARRY ON NURSE). One of the best of the lot is Roy Kinnear, lapping up his turn as a sleazy producer. The humour is rather broad and lowbrow, and as a sex comedy this doesn't really work despite lots of nudity, but as a send-up of the film industry in general it's quite fun and certainly more inventive than your usual CONFESSIONS sequel or rip-off.

This is one of the best of the British sex comedies.This is particularly so when it satirises the British film industry.The American ffilm executive is meant to be Deke Hayward European head ofAIP.Interesting to see London in the sixties

Nobody could claim that this is a great film, but it is amusing and does portray well a certain moment in time in the British film industry. It is well enough made, indeed, this is the second feature from the man who would later direct the recent, Casino Royale and The Legend of Zorro and he certainly establishes something of a CV for himself with this. A keen group are out to make a film and a greasy executive/agent ably played by Roy Kinnear helps them raise the finance. Unfortunately everybody who can invest will invest only if the film is of the particular genre he wants and includes his latest girlfriend or even boyfriend in one instance. This means numerous versions have to be made and Cambpell certainly has fun here. For us though most of the fun is in the original setting up with interviews and casting. There is plenty of nudity but it is not in your face and as they say, essential in the script. One particular tableaux presumably for the porno version is well done and a cry from one of the more pretentious thespians is classic; 'But what is the motivation for my erection?' Stars the writer of this and director of Mark of the Devil, Michael Armstrong, who also worked with Pete Walker.

This is a very rare creature indeed--a British sex comedy that is actually funny! This movie, probably inspired by Mel Brook's original version of "The Producers" is about three young men--an aspiring director (played by "Mark of the Devil" director Michael Armstrong), his virginal penguin-obsessed screenwriter, and the screenwriter's lothario flat-mate--who are all trying to break into the British film industry. They meet a sleazy producer (Roy Kinnear) who wants to make a film version of the famous bawdy poem "Eskimo Nell". To raise the money though he gets them to sell three very different versions of the movie to three different backers: a foul-mouthed American ("Big Dick")who wants to make a hardcore porn movie, another guy who wants to make a "kung-fu musical" to showcase the two "talents" of his girlfriend, and an arty dilettante who wants to make a gay Western ("with a lot of bottom smacking") featuring his transvestite boyfriend.

It gets worse when the producer runs off with the money, and the director has to find a fourth backer (simply to avoid the lawsuits), and goes to his society girlfriend's mother (no doubt modeled on puritanical British busybody Mary Whitehead)who runs a "decency" society and wants to make a clean family film! Needless to say, the whole thing goes horribly, horribly awry. Reels from the different versions get mixed up, a guy's willie gets caught in a clapboard, and one character delivers the immortal line: "What's my motivation for having an erection?" The movie is quite funny both in its conception and in its execution. It doesn't slather on the naked dolly birds quite as much as a lot of other British sex comedies of the era perhaps, but an almost unrecognizable Mary Millington does show for a 10-second "Benny Hill"-style speeded-up striptease.

As far as the sex goes, this probably won't inspire all the hairy-palmed Michaelangelos out there to turn their ceilings into a scummy Sistine Chapel, but it is definitely FUNNY and pretty entertaining, which is a lot more than can be said of the vast majority of these films.

In the artistic wasteland of 1970s' British sex comedies (and arguably a good deal of British cinema at that time altogether) Eskimo Nell shines out as a modest beacon of wit, satirical in a way that still strikes a refreshing note. These days no doubt, Morrison and Tweedle would be assigned to work on several cheap UK gangster films at once, as that's the genre which has lately shown the greatest lack of nerve in the home grown industry. Back then, with UK's business in worse decline, it was such dire products as Come Play With Me (1977), that exemplified a depressing wave of home grown 'sex' films, neither sexy or arguably, real cinema at all: just the sad, exploitative effects of a restrictive lack of investment, and censorship. Together with the slightly more family orientated Confessions... series and the even softer saucy postcard world of the Carry On... series, this is what represented the officially sanctioned 'adult' industry at the time.

Eskimo Nell's satire therefore had in its sights a ripe and obvious target, although it is still frequently overlooked as just another sex film of its time. Its a perception not helped by its small budget, mediocre (if enthusiastic) acting as well as a lingering air of titillation characteristic of the genre. Real life actor-screenwriter Michael Armstrong, whose previous film was the more predictable It Could Happen to You (aka: Intimate Teenage Secrets, 1975) - which would never the less make an interesting double bill with his Nell - made the hard to see crime factional drama Black Panther (1977) after this, before disappearing into TV and the humdrum. Greater things have come of the director Martin Campbell however, as he has since made such films as GoldenEye, Vertical Limit, as well as just being engaged on Casino Royale.

The present film falls into three main parts. First there is the setting up of the project, a period of the narrative dominated by the avuncular, disreputable Murdoch - a professional performance by Roy Kinnear, the sort of role at which he shined. Once he disappears and matters move onto the complicated matter of the filming, then character comedy is swapped for situational, the change bringing probably the funniest moments of the film. Finally, there is the anticipated premiere, the chase after film canisters and so on, providing a suitable wrap up. As others have pointed out, this last section changes the emphasis of the satire somewhat, from one focusing purely on the sex film industry as such to mimicking the strategies of the caper film.

Much of the pleasure of Nell comes from the incidentals, which have a real feeling of time and place, as well as a feeling that some of the principals had had first hand experience of the industry they spoof. As the guileless Morrison, Michael Armstrong makes an impression as a hopeful but little else; his pretentious cineaste-speak sounds hollow even as satire, especially when compared to the gloating, tit-centred obsessed speeches of Murdoch. Morrison's fazed expressions, to be replaced by that of creative concentration during the actual production, remind me of a similar innocent: that of Dennis Barlow, at the centre of Richardson's underrated The Loved One (1965). Both Barlow and Morrison share an initial bewilderment at encountering a strange society, and one tinged by aberrant sexuality. But while Morrison remains detached and never opportunistic (as well always slightly surprised at the brave new world in which he's suddenly found himself) Barlow is able, initially at least, to make headway of sorts. In fact one of the weaknesses of Nell is that its central trio contain no central dynamic, other than being desperate to salvage the situation in which they have been trapped. Even the penguin obsessed and virginal Tweedle, the most eccentric of the three, pales in significance compared to the outrageous characters surrounding him the sex film world.

Nell follows in the tradition of the British sex comedy in never being erotic, merely naughty. It gains an edge for us today from being so self referential, with an intelligence missing from other productions of the time, and some have compared it to Truffaut's Day For Night (1973). In truth it is far less accomplished than that, bearing more of a resemblance to Confessions Of A Blue Movie Star (1978), being less about cinema itself than the practical bluntness required for the production of porn. And its best moments appear as part of that production: the gay cowboy ripping a succession of skin tight jeans as he gets off his horse; the kung fu religious school with the bizarre juxtaposition of Sound Of Music with Bruce Lee, or just Christopher Biggins' cherubic face as he raises up a suggestively wrapped umbrella into our line of sight - with equally suggestive dialogue, naturally. The British DVD is barer of extras than a starlet's soliliquy.