Eskimo Nell (1975)

ESKIMO NELL is a one-of-a-kind British sex comedy farce looking at the workings of the film industry. It's certainly a rather jumbled production, full of hit and miss humour, in which a group of idealistic young men strive to make a film and come across various unscrupulous characters along the way.There's a wealth of talent involved in this one both in front of and behind the cameras which alone makes it a worthwhile watch. The movie was directed by a youthful Martin Campbell, cutting his teeth decades before he'd direct the likes of big Hollywood blockbusters like CASINO ROYALE. Exploitation king Stanley Long came up with the story, while one-time infant terrible of British cinema Michael Armstrong (MARK OF THE DEVIL) wrote and stars.There are many familiar faces in supporting roles, including a turn for later TV favourite Christopher Timothy playing a shy young virgin writer. Christopher Biggins is here alongside Katy Manning (DR WHO), Anna Quayle, Stephanie Cole, Derek Martin, Mary Millington (in a one-scene striptease) and the delightful Rosalind Knight (CARRY ON NURSE). One of the best of the lot is Roy Kinnear, lapping up his turn as a sleazy producer. The humour is rather broad and lowbrow, and as a sex comedy this doesn't really work despite lots of nudity, but as a send-up of the film industry in general it's quite fun and certainly more inventive than your usual CONFESSIONS sequel or rip-off.

'70's British sex comedies, eh? You either love them or hate them. I have a soft spot for the 'Confessions' series ( mainly due to the presence of the scrumptious Sheila White ) and 'Adventures Of A Private Eye' is not bad either, but let's face it, many were absolutely appalling, saddled with witless scripts that did no favours to the often impressive casts they had. 'Eskimo Nell' is a rare exception. Michael Armstrong not only wrote but starred in this very funny movie as 'Dennis Morrison', a naive young man who aspires to be a film director. Turned down by every studio, he goes to work for seedy Benny U.Murdoch ( the wonderful Roy Kinnear ) of B.U.M. Productions, maker of such classic motion pictures such as 'Vampire Vomit' and 'The Sexorcist'.Benny wants Dennis to direct 'Eskimo Nell', based on the infamous Victorian dirty poem. To help him, Dennis recruits Clive Potter ( the late Terence Edmond ) and Harris Tweedle ( Christopher Timothy, three years before he became a household name sticking his arm up cows' bums in 'All Creatures Great & Small' ). They approach potential backers, all of whom have different ideas about what sort of film 'Eskimo Nell' should be. One wants a hardcore sex movie with his blowsy girlfriend Billie ( Beth Porter ) in the lead, another a kung fu musical, while yet another prefers a gay Western.Their headache increases when Benny runs off with the money. As they are legally responsible for the film, they have to make it or else face a lawsuit. In desperation, they approach Lady Longhorn ( Rosalind Knight ), founder of a puritanical religious group that wants wholesome family entertainment back on the big screen. Hence our heroes have to make four versions of 'Eskimo Nell' in order to please everybody.At the finale, the wrong cans of film are accidentally sent to a Royal charity screening, and Her Majesty The Queen gets to see the hardcore sex version...'Eskimo Nell' sends up '70's British sex comedies a treat. I'm sure the cast and crew had a lot of fun with it. Armstrong is not much of an actor admittedly, but the rest of the cast more than compensates. Roy Kinnear is a scream as the big breast-fixated 'Murdoch', a man who boasts that he once cleaned up at the box office with a film called 'Dirty Knickers'. Also on view is Diane Langton ( from the I.T.V. version of 'The Rag Trade' ) as busty porn star 'Gladys Armitage' ), Katy Manning ( who had recently been seen as 'Jo Grant' opposite Jon Pertwee's 'Dr.Who' in the B.B.C. series ) as Dennis' posh girlfriend, Christopher Biggins, Sheila Bernette as an actress who does not mind getting her kit off but who balks at the thought of doing any acting, Nicholas Young ( from the I.T.V. sci-fi show 'The Tomorrow People' ) as camp-as-a-row-of-tents 'Deadeye Dick', Anna Quayle as 'Reverend Mother', and a fleeting glimpse of '70's porn icon Mary Millington as a stripteasing traffic warden.The director, Martin Campbell, went on to make two well-received James Bond movies - 1995's 'Goldeneye' and 2006's 'Casino Royale'. Simon Park, who wrote the music, later penned the theme to 'Eastenders'! Some gags are old, such as the naked actor getting part of his anatomy trapped in a clapper-board, and who is then carried off on a stretcher, bandages wrapped round said part ( I remember Stanley Baxter doing something similar ). We are a long, long way from the kind of British film industry 'Eskimo Nell' set out to lampoon, of course. Times ( and public tastes ) have changed. But this is still an amusing film all the same. 'Eskimo Nell' won't leave you cold.

Nobody could claim that this is a great film, but it is amusing and it does portray well a certain moment in time in the British film industry. It is well enough made, indeed, this is the second feature from the man who would later direct the recent, Casino Royale and The Legend of Zorro and he certainly establishes something of a CV for himself with this. A keen group are out to make a film and a greasy executive/agent ably played by Roy Kinnear helps them raise the finance. Unfortunately everybody who can invest will invest only if the film is of the particular genre he wants and includes his latest girlfriend or even boyfriend in one instance. This means numerous versions have to be made and Cambpell certainly has fun here. For us though most of the fun is in the original setting up with interviews and casting. There is plenty of nudity but it is not in your face and as they say, essential in the script. One particular tableaux presumably for the porno version is well done and a cry from one of the more pretentious thespians is classic; 'But what is the motivation for my erection?' Stars the writer of this and director of Mark of the Devil, Michael Armstrong, who also worked with Pete Walker.

Eskimo Nell has a rather bemusing reputation as the One Good Film in the plethora of bad British sexploitation comedies that were splattered onto UK cinema screens during the 1970s. Disappointingly, Nell isn't much better than the awful Confessions and even worse Adventures films, and the lurking shade of the hopeless Adventures producer Stanley A Long looms over this film, providing his usual trademark missed comic opportunities, poorly handled slapstick and crass humour which ultimately infect the piece.Michael Armstrong, who wrote and directed that masterpiece of 60s exploitation cinema Mark of the Devil, writes and stars here as a film school graduate (apparently based on Michael Winner) who finds himself rejected by the big American studios and forced to work with the sharks and sleazeballs of the British independent scene. He meets con-merchant producer Benny U. Murdoch (an unfunny Roy Kinnear) who persuades him to come in on a scheme to produce a screen version of the famous bawdy ballad Eskimo Nell. The fly in the ointment is that Murdoch has three backers, all of who wish to see their own lovers and penchants on screen in the final product.The twists and turns of the plot are okay, but what comes off the screen is mostly a series of missed opportunities. Too often, the script thinks that simply having someone say "I want to see big tits!" is the epitome of witty satire. The critique is never sophisticated nor incisive. One plus point is that although the portrait of the gay film producer Vernon Peabody and his drag queen toyboy Johnny is stereotypical, it is good to see at least one British 70s sex-pic which acknowledges that not every man in the world is heterosexual.Johnny and the cowboy drag film-within-a-film as well as Christopher Biggins done up in a romper suit for a family version raise the most laughs. There's a clunking car chase near the end (director Martin Campbell has a long way to go to Casino Royale) and some amusement is provided by having the hardcore version shown to the Queen at the royal command performance. But even this isn't exploited as much as it might be - a shot of the Queen staring at (or even getting off on) the on-screen sex would have been genuinely subversive.Ultimately, the film doesn't satirise what is the most glaring assumption in the British film industry, then as now: why chinless public school wonders like Armstrong's character and his mates think it's their god-given right to be filmmakers in the first place; if you are going to satirise the British film industry, begin with class.