Home Before Midnight (1979)

Some people see Home Before Midnight, made in 1978 and released in 1979, as an oddity in Pete Walker’s career as a director. If however you’re familiar with his early films such as Cool It, Carol! as well as his blood-drenched 70s horror films it doesn’t seem like such an outlier.

The tail end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s was a fascinating period in British cinema. The draconian censorship was starting to loosen up a little. British filmmakers were, very nervously, exploring the possibilities of making honest grown-up movies about sexual subjects.

Home Before Midnight came out in 1979 but it is a late entry in this intriguing cycle of British films. It was controversial at the time. Today it would have critics heading for the fainting couch.

Mike Beresford (James Aubrey) is the lyricist for a rock band. He’s 28. Despite his profession he’s a pretty ordinary pretty decent sort of guy. He picks up a pretty hitchhiker. Her name is Ginny (Alison Elliott). She tells him studying fashion design. They have sex but from the start it’s obvious that their attraction goes beyond the sexual. They fall head over heels in love very quickly.

Their relationship blossoms.

Then Mike finds Ginny’s bracelet. It was a birthday present. It has her birth date on it. She’s 14.

Up to this point Mike has had not the slightest reason even to think about her age. She looks maybe 19. She behaves like a girl of that age. She’s quite sophisticated and quite poised. She is obviously sexually very experienced. It worth pointing out that Alison Elliott, who plays Ginny, was indeed 19 at the time. And she looks 21 at least.

Of course it’s all going to become very messy. The police become involved. Mike is charged with things he did do and a whole bunch of things he didn’t do. There are betrayals.

It’s important to note the class angle. Mike is working class. Ginny is very middle-class. Her school is concerned only with its own reputation. Ginny’s father is horrified at the threat to the family’s middle-class respectability. He is incapable of understanding that Ginny has in fact been very sexually active for quite some time. He prefers to think that some awful working-class yob has corrupted his pure innocent little girl.

Clearly Walker had a few things to say in this film. The law has nothing to do with justice. The law is a blunt instrument. Even when wielded with good intentions it crushes people, and the police and the courts do not have good intentions.

Love does not conquer all. If there’s a conflict between love and the desire for social approval then love goes out the window. Mike’s problem is that he is the babe in the woods. He is amazed when he feels the metaphorical knife plunged into his back.

It’s interesting that some reviews criticise this movie for mixing a serious approach to a sensitive subject with exploitation content. I think this is a very wrong-headed attitude but it is alas very common - the assumption that sexual content is automatically exploitation content. I think that’s nonsense.

And it’s certainly nonsense in the case of this film. There’s nudity and there are some steamy sex scenes. They’re absolutely necessary. We have to understand that this is more than a sexual relationship, but it is a sexual relationship. We also need to understand that this is a case of very strong mutual sexual attraction. Ginny is not being pressured into anything. She is hot for Mike and she enjoys the sex very much. You might not approve of their relationship but if you’re going to get anything out of the movie you do need to understand the nature of the relationship. And the fact Ginny is not merely willing but eager to have sex becomes crucially important in plot terms.

And Walker approaches the sex scenes in a very sensitive way. They’re passionate but they’re not the least bit crass.

Perhaps the thing that will shock modern viewers the most is the movie’s assumption that the line between victim and villain is not clear-cut.

James Aubrey is very good as Mike. He plays him like a deer caught in the headlights and it works. Alison Elliott handles Ginny’s teenage girl wild unpredictability well. As for the age thing, whether she was a good casting choice is harder to say. She is totally unconvincing as a 14-year-old but in some ways that makes her the right choice since so much hinges on the fact that Mike does not even suspect Ginny’s real age. An actress who looked younger would have made this a completely different movie.

This is an intelligent provocative movie and it’s highly recommended.

I also very highly recommend Pete Walker’s earlier Cool It, Carol! (1970) which also deals intelligently with sex.

Other British movies of around this time that also try to deal intelligently with sex are All the Right Noises (1970), Baby Love (1969) and especially the superb I Start Counting (1969).

Cool It, Carol! (1970)

Pete Walker made a brief splash as a director of British horror films in the 70s but prior to that he had made a number of sexploitation movies. The last of them was Cool It, Carol! (released in the US as Dirtiest Girl I Ever Met) in 1970.

The basic plot is a very old story indeed. An innocent young girl from the country goes to the big city (in this case London) in search of fame and fortune and doesn’t find exactly what she hoped to find. In this movie she’s accompanied by a young man who also has dreams of making his fortune in London. These were old old clichés even in1970 but this movie adds some really intriguing spins. This is a movie that consistently avoids going in the direction you expect.

We start off in a typical small English village. The young man is butcher’s apprentice Joe (Robin Askwith). His fantasy is to work in a fancy car dealership in London, selling sports cars. The young woman is Carol (Janet Lynn). She pumps petrol in the local garage. She dreams of fame and glamour.

Joe is not exactly her boyfriend. They’re friends and maybe there’s some romantic attraction but it hasn’t gone very far. That all changes on the train to London when Carol seduces Joe.

Joe finds that you don’t just walk into a job in an exclusive luxury car dealership. You need to have the right qualifications. Mostly you need to have gone to the right school and you need the right upper-class accent.

Carol has more luck. She has real prospects of landing a modelling job. In the meantime they’re flat broke. Carol and Joe are rather pragmatic. The easiest way to get some quick cash would be for Carol to turn a few tricks. Which she does. She doesn’t particularly like doing it but she doesn’t really mind it and at least they now have money for food.

Various opportunities open up for Carol. She gets modelling work, including nude modelling. She appears in a hardcore sex film (with Joe as her co-star). She becomes a highly paid call girl. The money is now rolling in.

Of course you know what’s going to happen. It’s all going to turn into a nightmare for Carol and she’ll end up in the pit of degradation and despair. But that’s not what happens. I won’t tell you exactly what does happen but it’s an example of Walker’s determination in this film to avoid the obvious.

Around 1970 film censorship in Britain was finally starting to loosen up just a little but it was still necessary to tread very carefully. As a result this movie is fairly tame. There’s a small amount of nudity (including a brief flash of frontal nudity). There are some fairly non-graphic simulated sex scenes. Compared to British movies made just a year or two later it qualifies as very tame.

In the late 60s there were a number of British films that form a sub-genre we could call sexploitation misery. They’re like the incredibly depressing British kitchen sink dramas of the early to mid 60s with the addition of a very small amount of nudity but with the same message of utter despair. Their message is that having sex only leads to unhappiness so you might as well just throw yourself in front of a bus now and get it over with. Her Private Hell (1968) and Permissive (1970) are excellent examples. Cool It, Carol! definitely does not belong in that sub-genre. It’s not in the least judgmental and it’s not interested in guilt or misery.

It also does not fit into the classic early to mid 70s British sex comedy genre. It does have some very funny moments but it’s not the broad humour we associate with British sex comedies. There is no slapstick. Cool It, Carol! is a million miles away in feel from Confessions of a Window Cleaner. This is subtler more sophisticated humour.

If you only know Robin Askwith from the Confessions movies you’re in for a shock. He is very funny at times here but it’s a semi-comic performance with some moments that require serious acting, which he handles with surprising skill.

Janet Lynn is terrific. She avoids all the acting clichés you expect given the basic plot outline. She plays Carol as a girl totally lacking in self-pity. She is not a tragic character. Sometimes bad things happen to her but she shrugs her shoulders and moves on.

This movie is a succession of surprises. I’m not talking about clever plot twists but rather surprises in terms of the characters. There’s not a single character in the movie who is merely a stock character type or a mere stereotype. Characters are introduced and we think they’re going to be stereotypical but they turn out not to be.

There is for example the guy who makes the hardcore movies in which Carol appears, and the pimp whom they encounter. We assume they’re going to be the sleazy villains of the piece, corrupting Carol, but they aren’t really. They don’t use blackmail or threats to induce her to do anything (at no time in the entire movie is Carol forced to do anything). They offer her certain amounts of money and they pay her. They might seem a bit sleazy but they deal fairly with her. That’s not what you expect in this genre.

The two main characters are exceptionally interesting. They’re innocent by big city standards, but they’re not babes in the wood. Carol isn’t an innocent virgin. Right from the start she has a totally relaxed attitude towards sex. It just isn’t that big a deal for her. She doesn’t feel degraded or exploited being a prostitute or doing a hardcore film. It’s just sex. Joe acts as her pimp but he doesn’t exploit her. They’re not madly in love with each other but they are fond of each other. They are not corrupted by anything that happens to them. They started out as nice young kids and they remain nice young kids.

This was an incredibly radical approach for a British sex film to take in 1970. It’s almost as if sex is just a normal part of life rather than being wrong and dirty.

The first thing you notice about the 88 Films Blu-Ray transfer is that it’s slightly grainy. Whoever was responsible for the restoration had enough sense to realise that the grain is supposed to be there. It adds to the atmosphere. The Blu-Ray is packed with extras. Cool It, Carol! is very highly recommended.

School for Sex (1969)

School for Sex is a 1969 movie written, produced and directed by Pete Walker. It is included in the four-movie 88 Films Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection Blu-Ray set. This is an intriguing collection. One of the movies is a very late Pete Walker movie. The other three represent the very beginnings of his career as a director of feature films. These three include one truly excellent and rather quirky movie, Cool It, Carol!

School for Sex was Walker’s first proper feature film. It’s a sex comedy, but that has to be qualified since the movie was made in two very different versions. It has been said that the problem with British sex comedies is that they’re not funny and they’re not sexy. That’s a bit unfair. It’s a legacy of the extraordinary critical hostility to these movies at the time, a legacy they have never fully been able to escape. Some British sex comedies are actually very amusing. Some are sexy, in a typically embarrassed British way.

Which leads us back to the two different cuts of this movie. Given the insanely restrictive censorship environment in Britain in the 60s the cut prepared for British release is so tame that it could be described as a sexless comedy. The other cut, the continental cut, was intended for release in European markets. It represents the movie as it should have been and was clearly intended to be. Instead of the occasional embarrassed glimpses of bare breasts in the UK cut it features a lot of nudity, including a lot of frontal nudity. It’s an actual sex comedy.

Happily 88 Films have included both cuts on their Blu-Ray release. My advice is, don’t bother with the pointless British version. If you want to appreciate what Pete Walker was capable of doing within this genre you need to watch the continental version.

The movie begins with a distinguished English gentleman facing sentencing on charges of fraud. His defence counsel offers a lengthy speech in mitigation, which introduces a flashback sequence. We find out how Giles Wingate (Derek Aylward) ended up in such a mess. He had returned from the war a hero, to take possession of a large estate and an even larger fortune. Wingate had one weakness - women. And unscrupulous gold-diggers gradually stripped him of his fortune.

The plea of mitigation succeeds in keeping him out of prison but now he has to find a way to rebuild his fortune. He has a plan to do just that. He will turn Wingate Manor into a school for girls. But a school with a difference. The girls will be instructed in the art of seduction, the aim being to teach them how to separate rich men from their money. This will be profitable for the girls, and for Giles Wingate (he will get one-third of whatever money they are able to extract from those rich men).

Wingate will be the headmaster but he’ll need a deputy headmistress. He finds the Duchess of Burwash (Rose Alba) who needs work after having spent all her late husband’s money. The duchess is rarely sober but she’s in tune with Wingate’s ideas on how to make a less-than-honest buck. Wingate also finds a PT instructor for the girls, Hector (Nosher Powell), a broken-down lecherous ex-prize fighter. Wingate himself will teach the girls how to seduce men into handing over their fortunes. Having been the victim of unscrupulous women himself he knows all their techniques.

Unfortunately the amazingly thick-headed village policeman and a jealous neighbour are taking an interest in the goings-on at Wingate Manor.

That’s pretty much it for the plot but there is a nice twist at the end.

This movie has a very 1969 anti-authoritarian vibe. The police are bumbling idiots constantly sticking their noses into other people’s private affairs. Lawyers, judges and politicians are dishonest and are much worse rogues than Wingate.

Wingate is a rogue, but he’s a likeable rogue. His girls are not exactly honest. They all have criminal records (he recruits them via a crooked parole officer) but they’re likeable rogues (or rogue-ettes) as well.

Derek Aylward is perfectly cast. He does the dishonest gentleman thing superbly. One thing that’s interesting is that Wingate is genuinely fond of his young lady pupils and treats them with respect. He may not be honest but he is a gentleman.

The girls are all extremely pretty and all look good with or without their clothes. The most notable is Françoise Pascal who went on to star in Jean Rollin’s superb The Iron Rose (1973).

So going back to that accusation that British sex comedies are neither funny nor sexy, how does School for Sex stack up? It really isn’t terribly funny but it is good-natured and lighthearted and occasionally amusing. The British cut isn’t sexy, but the continental cut with its copious nudity definitely is sexy. It’s a basically good idea but at this stage of his career Walker lacked the experience to exploit it fully. It’s harmless and it is interesting as a very early British sex comedy. Worth a look, but don’t set your expectations too high.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers a nice transfer. There are quite a few extras. Sadly the audio commentary is disappointing.

For Men Only (1967)

For Men Only (originally titled I Like Birds) was written, produced and directed by Pete Walker and released in 1967. It was almost Walker’s first feature film. I say almost because with a running time of just 43 minutes it’s halfway between a short and a feature film. It’s included in the four-movie 88 Films Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection Blu-Ray set.

For Men Only is very similar in style and tone to Walker’s first proper feature film, School for Sex. Both are sex comedies, or at least they would have been but the narrow-minded puritanical British Chief Film Censor had no intention of allowing the Great British Public to be corrupted by such filth. As a result both movies are so ridiculously tame that they just fall rather flat. But both movies existed in two different cuts - the limp British cuts and much spicier cuts intended for European markets.

Happily 88 Films have included the sexier scenes from the continental version as extras so it’s possible to see what Pete Walker actually intended these movies to be - good-natured, amusing, lively and sexy.

Freddie Horne (David Kernan) is a journalist for Woman’s Vogue, or at least he was until his fiancée Rosalie (Andrea Allan) forced him to give up the job. She didn’t want him spending so much time with glamorous fashion models.

Her father has found him a more respectable job, working for a magazine publishing house that specialises in serious highly moral religious magazines.

Freddie gets a shock when he goes to the country house of the chairman of this publishing house, Miles Fanthorpe (Derek Aylward). He discovers that Fanthorpe’s real business is not religious magazines but girlie magazines. The religious magazines are just a front.

Fanthorpe’s house is full of very pretty very scantily-clad girls. The girlie photography is done here. Freddie knows that Rosalie won’t approve but Fanthorpe assures him she’ll never find out. And Freddie does have an eye for lovely young ladies.

Of course it’s all going to get rather fraught when Freddie forgets about his prospective father-in-law’s silver wedding anniversary party and Rosalie sets off to Fanthorpe’s country house to fetch him. Even worse, her father turns up soon afterwards. To put the icing on the cake the vicar and two very respectable church ladies also show up, to demonstrate their appreciation for Fanthorpe’s campaign for the moral cleansing of Britain.

Rosalie gets in a few embarrassing situations, falling into a bathtub and having to take off her sodden dress only to be mistaken for one of the models.

Freddie ends up sharing another bathtub with a couple of naked young ladies.

This film is very similar to School for Sex. Both have ideal plots for sex comedies but neither film manages to extract quite as many laughs from the situations as one might have wished.

For Men Only is however good-natured and light-hearted and energetic.

Derek Aylward to a large extent carries the film. He was remarkably good at playing characters who were gentlemen on the surface but likeable rogues underneath.

David Kernan is quite OK as the somewhat flustered hero.

It’s a movie that would like to be shocking but doesn’t quite dare to do so.

For Men Only was released as the second half of various double bills and apparently did reasonably well.

The short running time turns out to be an asset. It means that the action keeps moving along and the movie is less likely to wear out its welcome.

It’s interesting as marking the beginning of Pete Walker’s career (if you don’t count the 8mm nudie shorts he’d been making for several years). Walker developed quite quickly. School for Sex in 1969 would be an improvement on this film and it was followed by the rather excellent Cool It, Carol! a year later. For Men Only isn’t great but it’s worth a look.

The Blu-Ray provides a nice transfer but apart from the racier scenes from the continental version it’s bereft of extras.