Robin Askwith is telling me about his testicles. Specifically, how they took some serious punishment in the 1974 film Confessions of a Window Cleaner, when a woman seduced him in a sea of soapy bubbles.
“They filled the studio with foam, then me and this lovely lady called Sue Longhurst rolled around in it naked,” recalls the veteran actor. “It took a day and a half to film the sequence. Halfway through, I was getting a bit itchy downstairs. It turned out the detergent had bleach in it. There’s a reason my mum wore rubber gloves to wash up. My testicles were on fire for weeks.” Talk about suffering for your art.
Such eye-watering tales are par for the course in Saucy!, a Channel 4 documentary reassessing the British “sexploitation” comedies of the late 60s and 70s. They’re written off as an embarrassing chapter in UK cinema history but these slap-and-tickle romps broke box-office records and helped keep the homegrown film industry afloat.
The era’s so-called “permissive society” opened the floodgates to frisky farces that made the Carry On films look tame. “The prevailing mood was transgressive,” says Michael Armstrong, screenwriter of The Sex Thief, Eskimo Nell and Adventures of a Private Eye. “We were the Jesus Christ Superstar generation. We wanted to break rules, push boundaries and overthrow taboos.”
“You could feel mischief in the air,” agrees Askwith, now 73. “Back then, there was no access to nudity or porn. Suddenly here were sex films, playing in 800-seat Odeon cinemas, that you could take your girlfriend to. The films truly were unisex, which was key.”
Their eyes opened by the swinging 60s, and with women empowered by the pill, young Britons craved the kind of material they couldn’t see on the telly. Initially, film-makers skirted round the censors by making pseudo-documentaries about naturism, burlesque or sex education. The next step was smut with a storyline. But arty erotica was strictly for those classy continentals. UK audiences preferred their titillation with plenty of titters, hence combining slapstick with innuendo-crammed scripts. “It’s a tradition that goes from Chaucer to seaside postcards to Carry On,” says Askwith. “We British are good at taking our trousers down and laughing at ourselves.”
Actor and producer Françoise Pascal, now 74, appeared in 1969’s School for Sex. Made by Pete Walker, AKA “the godfather of sexploitation”, it saw young women learn how to use their feminine wiles to relieve men of money. Mixing explicit content with broad humour, it’s widely seen as the first sexploitation film. For Pascal, stripping off was a pragmatic choice. “I felt exploited and hated doing nudity but it was a way to pay the rent. When you watch School for Sex now, you can see my sour face. But I needed the money and had a great body, so why not?”
Besides, she says, decent parts for women were rare. During the documentary, actors wryly list the prevalent stereotypes of the era: “Naughty nurses, lusty lesbians, sex-mad strippers, teenage temptresses, frustrated housewives, dizzy blonds, randy au pairs, busty barmaids, saucy secretaries … ”
To everyone’s surprise, School for Sex turned out to be box-office gold. Released in mainstream cinemas, it became a cult hit in France and ran for two years on Broadway. “There’s no accounting for taste,” says Pascal. “It wasn’t very good.”
Some actors in the documentary argue that the films were subtly empowering. Women were in control, preying on hapless men. Pascal is unconvinced: “Maybe on screen it looked like that but behind the scenes, men had all the power.” Stories are rife of the casting couch and auditionees being asked to strip off. As Armstrong admits in Saucy!: “The 1970s were a very different place.”
Pascal played a French maid in 1976 period drama spoof Keep It Up Downstairs. Having gained enough confidence to say no, she declined to do a bare bottom shot. Co-star Mary Millington, who would soon be hailed as the UK’s first porn star, volunteered to be her body double. “I’m Mauritian, had just come back from the south of France and had the most incredible tan,” says Pascal. “So you see my brown face and, all of a sudden, it cuts to a pale white bum. But I was happy for her to do it instead of me. Thank you, Mary!”
Because pornography was still illegal, the films walked a tightrope between skin flick and sitcom. Familiar faces helped lure in TV viewers – the likes of Windsor Davies, John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Richard O’Sullivan, Jon Pertwee, Diana Dors and Norman Wisdom. “Sex films used to play in grubby little cinemas,” says Armstrong. “Making them comical shifted them away from that. Eskimo Nell [praised as “the Citizen Kane of sex comedies”] got full national distribution, which was unheard of. It was a turning point that opened up an entire market.”
As a relaxation of censorship rules meant a proliferation of bare flesh on screen, punters flocked to cop an eyeful. Confessions of a Window Cleaner became the top-grossing British film of 1974. “It was a guilty secret, a bit like Margaret Thatcher’s popularity,” says Askwith. “I never met anyone who’d admit voting for Thatcher and seldom met anyone who’d seen Confessions of a Window Cleaner. Explain that!”
Askwith was far from the bed-hopping lothario people assumed. “The character’s innocence was a big part of the film’s success. I wasn’t some Jim Davidson or Sid James type. I never said ‘Phwoar!’. The window cleaner pretended he was more sexually experienced than he was, just like I did.” Aged 23, appearing naked on camera helped Askwith with body confidence. “I had polio as a child but always covered it up. Subconsciously, this was a chance to celebrate my body and say: ‘Here I am. Look, I’m fine.’” The film even got the royal seal of approval. “Prince Charles went to see it. He was spotted coming out of the Cambridge Odeon. As a piece of publicity, it was gold dust.”
Sex comedies soon dominated UK cinemas. In 1975 alone, more than 20 X-rated romps were released. In 1976, frisky cabbie comedy Adventures of a Taxi Driver grossed more than Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, released the same year. Conservative crusader Mary Whitehouse may have clutched her pearls in dismay but the celluloid sexual revolution was unstoppable. Armstrong even put a thinly disguised Whitehouse character in Eskimo Nell. “It was my way of sending up censorship,” he says.
Sexploitation’s success took major studios by surprise. At a time when cinema attendance hit an all-time low and many had been converted into bingo halls (blame the rise of TV), sex comedies were a shot in the arm for domestic movie-making. “US studios had closed down European production,” says Armstrong. “Everybody was basically out of work. Sex or horror were the only films we could afford to make because they were cheap.”
The documentary reveals the less glamorous side of British B-movies. “It always seemed to be freezing cold,” says Pascal. “Mind you, I think directors liked it because our nipples were permanently erect.” Askwith had his own low point: “In Confessions of a Driving Instructor, we had it off in a golf bunker. We filmed that sequence on Radlett golf course in February. It was glacial. And let me tell you, there’s nothing sexy about being naked in a sandpit.”
Askwith became synonymous with the genre, starring in four Confessions films. His rear view was dubbed “the most famous bare bum in British cinema history”. He’s currently enjoying a career renaissance with roles in Strike, Inside No 9 and The Madam Blanc Mysteries, but for a while he was typecast. “I’d worked with Lindsay Anderson, Zeffirelli and Pasolini but suddenly my credibility was gone. I was pigeonholed as a pant-dropper and cast aside. Robbie Coltrane used to shout abuse at me. Another actor told me I was a complete sellout.”
Success spawned copycats. “Producers always try to duplicate the latest hit,” says Armstrong. “But like carbon copies, they get fuzzier the more you do. Some truly awful films came out. There’s only so many times somebody can drop his trousers and an audience will laugh. The element of surprise was gone.”
The golden age of risque comedy was over. Home video was about to change everything. As quickly as the sexploitation craze started, it stopped. “Times changed and the industry grew up,” says Pascal. “The public didn’t want that kind of titillation any more. Today’s audience would die, it was so politically incorrect. But I’m not ashamed. Je ne regrette rien. They were strange and fabulous days.”
“The genre might be dead but the films never go away,” says Askwith. “They got regenerated through VHS in the 80s, Channel 5 in the 90s, DVD in the Noughties. Now there’s a Blu-ray boxset coming out. They’re in danger of becoming loved. Only last month, Inside No 9 did a callback to my bare arse.”
“The movies have dated, of course, but audiences now are much more cine-literate,” says Armstrong. “A generation is rediscovering them as underground films or period pieces.” They don’t make ’em like that any more – rightly so – but it’s fascinating to look back at the wild time when they did. Just ask our monarch.
Saucy! Secrets of the British Sex Comedy is on 28 July on Channel 4.