Roll over image to zoom in
Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema
£49.40
This deluxe, expanded new full colour edition includes an updated filmography and previously unpublished interview material and stills. In this title, Simon Sheridan traces the history of the British sex film from its beginnings in coy nudist camp films such as Some Like It Cool (directed by Michael Winner in 1960) through the boom years of the Confessions films to its demise in the early 1980s.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Titan Books Ltd, Revised edition (22 April 2011) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 304 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0857682792 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0857682796 |
| Dimensions | 21.84 x 3 x 26.82 cm |
by tony forehan
This has to be the work of a true fa as it covers everything that a reader would require. The text is written in a very informative manner without being “preachy”, the pics and advertising material is top notch and the lay out is terrific.
by GD
Mandatory reading for anyone who was a teen in the Sixties and Seventies. Some great stories and entertaining reviews. Those were the days.
by S. P. Ridley
This book is a fantastic read.Well put together listings of films by year ending with a few pages on the 80’s straight to video productions.It’s an invaluable resource into 70’s british sex cinema which you’ll read from cover to cover and still come back to for reference again and again when you spot an all to infrequent new dvd release.
by RICHARD O’CONNELL
very good
by P D N
I recall Roger Moore as Bond using the words, ‘keeping the British end up’ when caught in flagrante by M in the Spy Who Loved Me. There was a great big dollop of cheese with a wide grin and a wink to the audience. Bond was nothing if not topical and that surely was a nod to the British sex films of the mid 1970’s. In fact, the British sex comedy and Moore’s Bond films were quite similar in that they were a mix of slapstick, sexy birds and a heavy dose of British repression.
Keeping the British End Up covers those mostly unloved ‘dirty postcard’ type films that the dirty mac brigade would go to see in Sullivan’s and Raymond’s Soho fleapits. Detailing 25 years of smut from 1958’s ‘Nudist Paradise’ to 1983’s ‘Hellcat’s Mudwrestling’ it is a definite guide to the British ‘sex comedy’ [which had no sex and precious little comedy]. Each film has the authors review, cast and crew details. Either side of the movie reviews there are pre-1958 and post-1983 sections and as author Sheridan reveals, it all began with the nuddy film [probably by a caravan, playing volleyball] and somehow morphed into Robin Askwith covered in soap suds and later, genuine ‘sex stars’ like Mary Millington and Fiona Richmond. The actors, actresses, directors, writers etc are covered in a section called ‘Knobs and Knockers [fnar, fnar] starting with Hazel Adair and ending with Christopher Wood [who also wrote a Bond film].
As the British film industry was going to pot in the early 70’s, these films took off and Confessions of a Window Cleaner – directed by respected movie-maker Val Guest [The Day The Earth Caught Fire] was a remarkable success. They were kinda more risque Carry On films with a bit of added raunch and nudity filled with what looked like, page 3 girls or Mayfair centrespreads [rather than Babs Windsor or Elke Sommer]. Even, the Carry-Ons got in on the act in their post Sid James last gasp with Emmannuelle. American, cult-director, Jack Arnold [The Incredible Shrinking Man] had a go too with ‘Sex Play’. No, I don’t know what he and Guest were thinking either. I suppose when the film industry is in the toilet you’ll do anything.
To my eternal shame [and I’d completely forgotten about this] I own two of the films mentioned in the text – Zeta One and The Sex Thief [for Yutte Stensgaard and Diane Keen respectively] – even though I’m not especially a fan of these types of pictures. It’s only when I read the book, I realised I’ve seen far too many of the films mentioned in the text. I blame Channel 5 who older readers will remember had nothing but these sex films on because they had bug*er all else to broadcast. In their early days in the late 90’s they dredged up long forgotten 70’s stars like Askwith and Richmond for the Saturday night schedules.
Don’t go thinking there’s an undiscovered classic in here. Be under no illusions, they’re rubbish, all of them but if you like tits and bums and enough pubes to knit a sweater then they’re for you. This reference book will help you decide whether they’re crap, tat or trash.
by MR BARRY ROBERT WEBB
I was expecting more from this book, going by the title but it failed to deliver not all films covered.
I would like to have seen more about the characters in each film like a cast list, and also was it available on DVD.
I would not recommend it.
by Dazz
As this is the Third edition of this book some bits have been altered from before. Some film write ups have been changed slightly which was disappointing, cutting out some description of the plot and adding other information. There is a larger colour picture section though than before and additional films have been added to the main section of the book. The section about events after 1983 has also been brought up to date and the section about people at the end has seen some removed and other new ones added. It is still the best book to get on this subject and very comprehensive. Previous to this books publication the only book about the british sex film industry was the much shorter Doing Rude Things by David McGillivray of which I have the old version which inspired the making of a television documentary on the BBC and recently a new and expanded version of the Doing Rude Things book has been published.
by orvuus
… of my favorite cinema review titles, that is! I am from the US, and don’t often buy UK books, simply because the increased postage rate makes it an expensive proposition. However from the other reviews here I gathered that it was what I was looking for, and I was not disappointed. Growing up in the US in the late 1960’s and ’70’s, some of my favorite films and TV programs were from the UK, for the simple reason that they offered the best look at women!
The odd thing was one could usually see more violence in US films and TV, but for quite some time one could not see hints of sex or even undress! The films reviewed here are almost all “saucy,” and not the more explicit “hardcore” films that came along later. Quite frankly most of these films are not very amusing, as comedies, but can be interesting visually at least. This book is well-illustrated with various photos and poster reproductions that can help one to decide whether a particular title if worth viewing today, now that so many of these films have made their way to DVD. The author does a great job of summing up the film, and includes a bit about the production and actors involved, as well as an overview of the social evolution of “naughty” films in the UK. The author also points out correctly that in the UK at least somewhat equal opportunity was given to male nudity (leading to lots of unfortunate views of Robin Askwith, for example!), whereas in the US even the male backside was rarely shown!
A very entertaining and well-done book.