Respectable: The Mary Millington Story (2016)

Wonderful character development!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Simon Sheridan has long been writing entertaining books about the British sex film industry of the 1970s, so he was obviously perfectly placed to make this documentary about one of the decade's leading industry lights. RESPECTABLE is a real labour of love for those involved, getting into the nitty gritty of Millington's character and providing a fully-rounded exploration of what made her tick.This is a traditionally-structured documentary that starts out with snappy sound bites and choice cuts before moving into a chronological exploration of her career. Millington started out in modelling before moving quickly into hardcore pornography. Bizarrely, she then become something of a mainstream starlet, featuring in numerous tabloids due to her outrageous behaviour and even getting a film career of sorts. The final part of the documentary explores her decline and tragic suicide at the age of 33.RESPECTABLE is a fine mix of talking head interview footage and clips from Millington's career. Be warned, this is explicit stuff indeed, with lots of brief moments from her pornographic work on display, so many in fact that I'm surprised this was passed as an 18 certificate. Dexter Fletcher is a fine choice of narrator for the piece and the interviews are all with interesting or entertaining faces like Dudley Sutton, Ed Tudor Pole, and David Sullivan. Millington's tale is something of an odyssey packed with incident and outrage and the viewer comes away with a thorough picture of life in Britain's mainstream sex industry during the 1970s.

This eminently watchable documentary is the story of Mary Millington, the porn star and glamour model who became a household name in 1970's Britain. The title comes from her quote: "I was born respectable, but I soon decided I wasn't going to let that spoil my life".Through clips of Mary, including brief glimpses of her hard core loops, which seem playful, even innocent today, as well as interviews with family members, lovers, friends and colleagues, a fascinating story emerges. Though it was to end in tragedy, there's lots of fun along the way, not least when Dudley Sutton amusingly disses and dismisses Mary's arch enemy, self-appointed Filth-Fighter General, Mrs Whitehouse.Mary married Bob Maxted when she was eighteen, and he remained her husband to the end of her life, though it was an open marriage from early on. The Sixties and Seventies were a time when the last vestiges of Victorian morality were breaking down, with their replacement by modern day taboos some way off. Stories of suburban swinging and the legendary 'wife swapping' parties were rife, TV programmes with sex scenes and partial nudity abounded, and for a time, newsagents and corner shops up and down the land were festooned with scores of different soft core sex magazines to an extent unimaginable today. Some of these were becoming increasingly explicit, particularly those owned by David Sullivan, and it was these that brought Mary her fame.However, the UK authorities were adamant that they would not follow the rest of Europe in legitimising the sale of explicit porno films of the 'Deep Throat' variety. Mary was determined to confront them, and soon fell foul of the UK's notorious 'Obscene Publications Act' still in force today, which allowed the authorities to go after material they arbitrarily considered 'likely to deprave and corrupt'. Much police harassment and bullying followed and this, plus her increasing addiction to hard drugs and not least the depression which became worse after the death of her beloved mother, were major factors in her tragic death.The film is a significant achievement by first time director, Simon Sheridan, Mary's biographer and long time champion, and is a 'must see' for anyone who wants to learn more about her life, and sex in the UK of the Seventies.

Showing on Netflix, this is an informative documentary for those who do not know much about the 1970s British pornographic film industry and its one time leading light who lived every cliché before dying. I had heard of Mary Millington growing up in the 1970s because she got a lot of coverage in the newspapers that were published on Sundays, and her films were always advertised in the fronts of cinemas. The films themselves when seen on tape in the 1980s were rather bland unfunny smut fests than full on sex films. If it wasn't for magazines like Whitehouse and Playbirds being passed round school playgrounds the Mary Millington of porn legend would have been long forgotten.The film was obviously made by a film maker who likes his subject and keeps the tone of the film positive and zips through her life with stories and photographs of Mary Millington from her child hood through to her tragic suicide. There are lots of talking heads who were there during this time including the man who turned Mary into a publishing house and made David Sullivan a millionaire many times over.The documentary contains many clips from Marys rather explicit back catalogue and though not full on sex is displayed it manages to convey what her films were like outside of her soft porn career. Be warned there are brief glimpses of fellatio, rutting and girl on girl action from her porn loops and brief snippets and covers from the magazines she appeared in.It's interesting to see how mainstream celebrity at the time led to her downfall, and brought her into the world of cocaine and high living, whilst also battling depression. Even in her early days according to the film she was earning £200 a film (worth £4,000 in today's earnings), those 8mm loops cost £1,000 to make and could sell 300,000 units across Europe. Millington also appeared in porn magazines during the 1970s and these could sell upwards of a million copies per issue. This film is worth watching and it handles its subject with respect

Simon Sheridan has put together an incredibly moving, touching and funny documentary that sheds light on the effervescent Mary Millington. This is so much more than a documentary on porn; it is an insight into how one woman showcased her own feminist movement, albeit in way that rocked the establishment, and how she celebrated her unconventional job and how she loved her body. Mary was natural, smart, and way before her time.Respectable highlights a time in the 20th century when we Brits were conflicted with our culture, but most of it all is explores the beauty and vulnerability of Mary, who was, in a way, Britain's own Marilyn Monroe. Mary sparkles on the screen, and Simon Sheridan has cleverly captured the essence of Mary through footage and interviews with her family. Watch this, and learn something. Compelling, tragic, thoughtful, wonderful. This is the best thing I have watched in 2016.