Thursday 15 October 2015

An X-rated Xmas Mystery

Recently video collector extraordinaire ‘hellochas’ spotted an advert in a 1981 magazine that mentions a hitherto unknown and undocumented British sex film from the very early days of video. ‘From the producers of The Ups and Downs of a Handyman’ SEX FOR XMAS would have set you back £25.50 back then. The Ups and Downs of a Handyman connection, and the fact that it was being shopped around alongside Take an Easy Ride, would suggest the involvement of Handyman producer and Take an Easy Ride director Kenneth F Rowles.





Another connection to Rowles is that the star of Sex for Xmas, or at least the person whose photo was chosen to illustrate the advert, is Gloria Brittain, the star of Rowles’ The Perils of Mandy which was made around this period (the Sex for Xmas advert appeared unseasonally in March 81, Mandy turned up on video in November 1982). It would seem that Sex for Xmas, like The Perils of Mandy, was another attempt to promote Brittain, via a shot on film, but aimed squarely at the home video market, production.

However unlike The Perils of Mandy, which had wide distribution on video, Sex for Xmas looks to have been a more smaller scale venture, maybe only a mail order affair, perhaps explaining why it has fallen under everyone’s radar until now, and why –as of this writing- its VHS release has remained elusive. Thanks to Hellochas for the scan, and for bringing this one to my attention.



Early 1980s clippings and glamour shots of Gloria Brittain.


2 comments:

THX 1139 said...

£25.50 for Take an Easy Ride! It only lasts forty minutes! Taken for a ride, more like. I don't imagine this Xmas video lasted much longer. I suppose they thought the buyer would get a lot of use out of it (ahem).

gavcrimson said...

Early video erotica certainly seems to have been a costly way to have a good time, the fact that they were so prohibitively expensive back then is probably the reason why those mail order only videos are so rare these days