Come Play With Me (1977) from Tuna

Come Play with Me (1977) is a British sex farce/tittie flick.

There is a certain amount of confusion over this film, but I don't know why. Bare Facts lists it as a German film, with un-reviewed nudity from Brigitte Lahaie, who is not even in the film, and Mary Millington, who is in the film, her first screen appearance. There are no reviews on line, and the comments at IMDB a rather misleading. They describe it as a terrible sex film/comedy, with bad male comedians, a weak plot, awful songs, and almost no nudity. I will give them most of that, but if this is their idea of no nudity, I have to get access to their film library.

Mary Millington shows everything, both in the film, and during a 7 minute retrospective of her career, including a girl/girl scene. Although Millington was far from the star, she was the most notable cast member. She was hugely popular throughout her 26 year career, which sadly ended when she took her own life. Sue Longhurst shows breasts in a lengthy sex and food scene, and more unidentified actresses than I could count showed everything from breasts to full frontal throughout the film.  It claims to be the earliest example of full-frontal nudity in British film. 

The plot, such as it is, goes something like this. Someone is counterfeiting 20 quid notes that are nearly perfect. Some government minister fears that Her Majesty's government will fall if the counterfeiters aren't caught. They enlist the aide of a stripper/agent (Longhurst), figuring that a strip joint is a likely place to pass the bills (and see some naked women). Meanwhile, the counterfeiters are holed up in a so called health spa in Scotland which has no business, where they can make a new press run in peace and quiet. The owner's nephew shows up with a busload of strippers, starts running ads saying "Come Play with Me", and has the girls entertain the guests, so the place becomes far from quiet.

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

DVD info from Amazon

The biggest negative was the audio, which was very mushy. The 4/3 transfer was not bad for a film of that age, with good saturation, and very little dust or dropouts.

Scoop's notes in yellow:

Some guesses ....

Bare Facts seems to have two or three films mixed up. Lahaie was in two German Films which were called Come Play With Me 2 and Come Play With Me 3 in their English distribution. Millington was in the 1977 Come Play With Me, but was not in the other two, at least not that I know of. If she was, IMDb is not aware of it. To add to the confusion, there were also at least four other movies called Come Play With Me, all made between 1968 and 1994.

The DVD seems to be the full original version of the film, with the four censored scenes restored. That explains why the men who saw it in British Theaters complained about the lack of nudity. I suppose they saw the film without those scenes, presumably making it quite a different film from the one Tuna watched.

The Critics Vote

  • General USA consensus: two and a half stars. Ebert 2.5/4, Berardinelli 2.5/4.

  • General UK consensus: two stars. Mail 4/10, Telegraph 4/10, Independent 4/10, Guardian 2/10, Times 6/10, Sun 5/10, Express 6/10, BBC 3/5

The People Vote ...

  • The film was a huge commercial success when released, running for 4 years straight in London's West End.

 
The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is a solid C. The entire purpose was to show naked women, and they did exactly that.

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