Baby Love.

Edinburgh born Alastair Reid’s debut feature film was described with a typical piece of 60’s speak as ‘a daringly contemporary film on the conflicts between generations conducted with the weapons of sex’[1]. Today it would, as David Kerekes remarks, be seen as a cavalier depiction of a subject matter that would be considered risqué or taboo. In the case of Baby Love (1968) the taboo nature of the subject would be underage children in the proximity to sex and even sexual danger. In this story Luci, the debut role of 15-year-old Linda Hayden who went on to make sexploitation films including Expose (1975), is not simply exposed to sex but is the actual sexual predator seducing all three members of a wealthy middle class metropolitan family, think Theorem (1968) although the predator in the Pasolini movie is certainly not under the age of consent!

 

Luci's mother played by Diana Dors.

The 15 year old Nymphet. 

Based on a novel of the same name by Tina Chad Christian, Luci comes home from school to find that her mother, played mainly in flashback by the formidable Diana Dors, has committed suicide and is lying dead in the bathhouse out back and that she is now an orphan! Robert (Keith Barron), a well to-do Doctor and ex lover of her mothers, has agreed to take the young working class Liverpudlian into his large well appointed home on the banks of the Thames in London. One suspects this is more to do with guilt about abandoning her mother than his paternal feelings. Luci is no fool’ gradually working her charms on all three members of the family, including mother Amy and son Nick, who is about the same age as Luci.    

 

The seduction of Amy begins....

....and son Nicky who is driven to distraction by the new lodger. 

Where in a film article today would you find the description of a 15 year old as ‘prepubescent and provocative’[2] and the deliberate sexualisation of a schoolgirl when a successful married man brings a young nymphet into the family home where she uses her only strength to bring about the down fall of his family, seducing the mother, playing sexual games with their son and bringing vengeance to the father who she see’s as deliberately abandoning her now deceased mother.

 

A frustrated man attempt the rape of his wife! 

When this film was made it was not illegal to take photographs of naked children or to sell them. The law changed in 1978 when The Protection of Children Act became law and as Kerekes goes on to say in his article, under this act Baby Love could not be made today given the scenes of a naked under age child having simulated sex on screen. As I have said in previous 60’s blogs this time period is interesting mainly because attitudes were completely different than they are today and Reid’s movie is a prime example. But even so there was no reason to interject soft porn music to emphasise the films more erotic moments, I think your spot them for your selves!

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[1] Baby Love. Underage Sex and Murder. David Kerekes.

[2] Films and Filming June 1973.

Expose.

This is one of the only British films to end up on the Director of Public Prosecutions video nasties list; on viewing it today it’s hard to see why. When watching it you’ve got to remember that it revisits an era of British sex films that sometimes could only be seen in what was called ‘Private Cinemas’ they were supposed to be for members only. They would run the film back to back, day and night and charge the punters a higher seat charge than your local picture house.

The sexual inhibitedFiona Richmond.

Linda and Fiona get to know one another better.

Receiving a brilliant reception for his first novel, the arrogant and paranoid writer Paul Martin has rented an isolated country cottage at Straw Hill to complete his next best selling novel. Obsessed with locking doors, he is also plagued by nightmarish visions and the arrival of his enigmatic new typist Linda only seems to add to his trauma. In response Paul taunts and humiliates her by flaunting his sexually alluring girlfriend Suzanne who he invites to stay at the cottage. But Linda is harbouring a secret, which the viewer will easily work out but Paul does not latch on. As the twisted sexual activities develop - chilling questions emerge - who is the aggressor and who is the victim, by this time you don't really care! 

 

Linda Hayden threaten's Udo Kier....

....Udo Kier attempts to escape.

This is a sexploitation thriller that exploits the school of ‘dodgy acting’, as did a lot of these types of films in the 1970’s. It stars Linda Hayden (Linda) who made her name in the 70’s as an actress that appeared in horror and erotic movies. She made her debit in 1968 at the age of 15 in Baby Love, a film that tells the story of a schoolgirl who seduces her adoptive family after her mother commits suicide: a similar theme to Pasolini’s Theorem (1968). Suzanne is played by the 70’s UK sex icon, Fiona Richmond (see also The Look of Love 2013) she appeared in erotic stage presentations including Woman Behind Bars (1977) where she shared the Whitehall Theatre’s stage with Divine, and she also wrote first hand sexual adventures for men’s magazines. She was also credited with being one of the most uninhibited stars of the British erotic cinema in films that included Expose (1975), Hardcore (1977) and Lets Get Laid (1977). The writer Paul Martin is played by the German actor Udo Kier who was born in Cologne in 1945, He is another actor who made his name in the 1970’s and 80’s by appearing in horror and erotic movies including The Story of O (1976) and Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) moving into main stream cinema in the 1990’s and appearing in many of Lars Von Trier’s body of work including his latest Nymphomaniac (2013). Expose, written and directed by James Kenelm Clarke who also worked with both Richmond and Hayden in Lets Get Laid, also includes an early appearance of the talented actor Karl Howman who is probable best known for his work on television in series that included The Bill, Brush Strokes and A Fine Romance. Nostalgia for soft porn lovers before the days of the Internet!