Come Play with Me (1977)

This is one of those films that I describe as "so bad it's good". This is an often-used term by people to describe films that are usually ineptly produced and fail at delivering what they intend yet end up being incredibly funny, albeit for all the wrong reasons. I remember reading in a review for another film elsewhere on IMDb that this term can never be applied to a comedy, since a bad comedy is, according to that review, one that isn't funny. In theory I should agree with that since it makes sense. But then I watch COME PLAY WITH ME once more and realise that I don't.For reasons totally unknown to me and to everyone else who has reviewed this film, it was a massive box office hit in the UK, breaking records to become the longest running film to ever grace a UK cinema screen. It ran in cinemas for an incredible four years.The plot is as follows - two forgers go on the run from a bunch of crooks and hide out in a health farm. From there the plot expands to include a government official on their trail, along with the crooks, a health farm where there are virtually no staff, and a bunch of young women turning up on a coach to run said health farm.Lots of familiar faces from the period show up in this film, including Alfie Bass, Ronald Fraser, Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Ken Parry and many others. For none of these people is COME PLAY WITH ME their finest hour. But they are all fun to watch and the film is kept moving along nicely. The lovely Sue Longhurst, a veteran of the 1970s sex comedies, is present too and that was a wise decision on the part of the producers. She's always great to watch.George Harrison Marks is unintentionally funny playing one of the forgers. It's well-documented that he was drunk during the making of the film and it's evident in most of his scenes. But it is funny to see him dressed up in a Victorian-era outfit (complete with horrible wig and false teeth), looking like he stepped right out of a 1930s music hall production, and into the 1970s. There's one scene where he's lifting a trunk out of the back of a car. I don't know why but I laugh every time I see it, even though there are no intentional "sight gags" involved.The editing is very sloppy in places, with Henry McGee looking at the camera at the end of one scene for example. This provides some of the amusement to be found in the film. The dialogue comes across as being improvised on the spot at times, the absolutely awful song called Pretty Girl plays out over quite a few scenes and Ken Parry's character is just written out halfway through the film as though his part in the plot was left unfinished. I think you're getting the idea now what I was getting at when I suggested the film was inept.There are a few sex scenes but they are all very softcore (made more so by censorship edits). People watching the film in this day and age won't be surprised to find that the marketing of the film as some kind of hardcore pornography effort was just a con trick on the part of the producer. The sex scenes aren't particularly erotic or funny and serve only to slow the film down a bit while adding the obligatory "T&A" to ensure this qualifies as a sex film rather than a straight comedy like the CARRY ON films for example.COME PLAY WITH ME is funny mainly for all the wrong reasons but it does provide a lot of entertainment and seems to get funnier with each viewing. There isn't more one could really ask for when watching a very low-budget film from the 1970s.

It seems like an aeon ago that the likes of Mary Millington and Fiona Richmond were able to cause such uproar with their brand of dingy, don't-scare-the-donkeys soft-porn. Pre-MTV, this was sex the English way: socks on, lights out and trying not to burn holes in the nylon sheets during a giggly post-coital fag.It all makes you feel tremendously sorry for Britain's dirty mac brigade, shuffling into their sticky-backed cinema seats in Soho in the early 1970s to watch the likes of Millington's Come Play With Me - a god-awful sex-comedy less funny than the average Carry On (who'd set a bawdy precedent) and about as saucy as a bag of ready salted crisps.John Landis homages such stuff very well for An American Werewolf In London's film-within-a-film 'See You Next Wednesday', in which a pendulous-bosomed fishwife interrupts a spot of rufty to answer the phone.

As a child of the seventies I grew up with the Myth that this movie was a great porn classic. I first managed to see "Behing the Green door" first and was both as excited and impressed as a young teen could be. I then soon saw this steaming pile of dog excrement and I think it almost put me off sex for a decade. There is nothing that isn't terrible about this movie, (except for Mary Millington who was lovely to look at but was to acting what Dom Deluise is to gymnastics.) I once met the Great Alfie Bass and after enquiring about "The Fearless Vampire Killer" and working with The Goodies I bravely mentioned this. He shook his head in shame and told stories of George Harrison Marks being so drunk he directed most of the movie asleep or vomiting.It shows. The songs are so awful I think I would chose a slow death than ever hear them again. A movie to avoid at all costs.

this makes the worst Carry ON movie look like Classic Billy Wilder.George Harrison Marks is the most awful actor ive seen though his performance does make you laugh at him.the script is rotten and the song is one of the worst in movie history.1 out of 10