Arabian Knights (1979)

 

Made at the tail end of George Harrison Marks' involvement in hardcore pornography, Arabian Knights was one of a number of short films Marks was commissioned to make in 1978/79 which centred around busty model Nicky Stanton. Bra Wars, Bustman's Holiday and Busty Ravers were all softcore loops financed by the big bust fetish magazine 'Peaches'.  Arabian Knights, Cockpit Cunts, Busty Baller and Big N' Busty were hardcore shorts, with the money for those coming from the euro loop company Color Climax. Nicky had the makings of an all time great Marks model, with a Pamela Green like ability to look entirely different by merely flipping on a new wig. Nicky also had the physical requirements that Marks generally looked for in his models...which is the polite way of saying she had massive tits. Unfortunately the Stanton films caught Marks at a low ebb, creatively. "George was going through a fairly quiet period at that point and seemed to enjoy most of his spare time lounging around the flat, playing with his cats and drinking vodka" remembered his girlfriend at the time "in retrospect I would suspect he was quite depressed as he couldn't see a clear direction and he got bored doing the blue films."

Nicky Stanton

Whereas the early 70s hardcore loops Marks had shot of Clyda Rosen (Autograph Hour, Dolly Mixture) have Marks' eccentricity and personality all over them, the Stanton loops are far more conventional examples of pornography, that realistically could have been made by anyone. Busty Baller has your basic porn loop narrative of...man knocks on a door, woman answers it, they fuck, the end. Big N' Busty doesn't even bother with a premise, cutting straight to Nicky being fucked by two guys. Arabian Knights is the most lavish of the Stanton loops, thanks to Color Climax footing the bill for Arabic costumes, naked extras and a four star hotel as the shooting location, all contributing to an air of late 1970s, well moneyed, sexual decadence. Indeed the film was likely inspired by Marks' involvement with the rich Arabs who indulged in sex tourism during their business trips to London. Many of Marks' models had career sidelines as high class prostitutes, and Marks would act as a reluctant pimp, tipping the girls off when 'the Arabs' were in town, while forewarning them just what they were signing up for. Apparently the Arabs paid well, but had a reputation for the severe, with anal sex being the main order of the day. In her recent autobiography Cosey Fanni Tutti remembers Marks calling her up about the Arabs, asking her "Do you do anal? That's all they want, They'll pay you a couple of grand. It's in their flat in Mayfair". After declining this offer to party with the ass crazy Arabs, Fanni Tutti noted that Marks 'seemed relieved that I'd refused. I turned down all such offers and eventually wasn't asked again'. In Marks' blue movie take on this subject, a rich Arab Sheik is in the process of finalizing a deal with a western businessman (Marks regular 'Short Jack Gold'). To seal the deal the Sheik lays on a parade of harem girls for the pair of them to choose from. After touching up the lineup, the Sheik decides on a threesome with two of the girls (Nicky Stanton and Jada Smith) and gets to experience Nicky's tit-fucking abilities, before blowing his load over Jada's pussy. Playing the role of generous host, the Sheik gives the okay for his western counterpart to partner off with another of the harem girls and do some Middle Eastern drilling of his own. Or as the inimitable hyperbole on Color Climax's 8mm box puts it "they then get down to some really passionate poolside poking and in absolutely no time the two oilmen are gushing their gism all over the place, covering the busty birds in come".

The surprise piece of casting here is long time movie heavy Milton Reid, who appeared in the big budget family movie 'Arabian Adventure' the same year. Here Milton embarks on an altogether more adult type of Arabian Adventure, and seems to be having a ball as the Sheik's servant. A role that gives him the opportunity to line up the naked harem girls, pinch their bums and see some big boobs. On a roll, Milton followed this with a non-sex role as a chauffeur in the hardcore loop Schoolgirl Holiday, and in Bustman's Holiday, Milton strips down to a thong and ends up frolicking in a pool with Nicky Stanton and another big bust model. The mini scandal that erupted over the filming of Arabian Knights (more on that later) didn't exactly do Milton's reputation any favours. My impression though is that his career was winding down at this point, with stories of him becoming muscle bound and suffering from arthritis by the end of the 1970s. While Arabian Knights captured Reid in career decline, the film also marked the debut (and only hardcore performance) of Jada Smith, who soon after would relaunch her career in softcore magazines and films under the name 'Rosemary England'. Long out of the public eye and wanting nothing to do with her past, Jada/Rosemary now runs a B&B on the south coast. Fortunately for her, she retains a degree of anonymity in the Internet age by virtue of her real name. 99.9% of Internet search results for 'Jada Smith' relating to Will Smith's wife, rather than an obscure porn star turned B&B owner.

Incidentally I was surprised to recently discover that the going rate for the women who acted in high end porn loops back in the 1970s was £100 a day, whereas male performers could only expect to walk away with £60 per day. There is an irony in the fact that an industry which is routinely accused of exploiting and demeaning women was actually paying them nearly twice as much as men for doing the exact same job. A boast that few 'respectable' professions can lay claim to in 2022, let alone in the 1970s. In the world of seventies loops, it seems female performers were the ones who were valued, whereas men were paid less, even though the success or failure of these loops tended to rest heavier on the men's shoulders...as well as other parts of their anatomy.

Speaking of male performers, here's what cast member 'Short Jack Gold' had to say about Arabian Knights a few years ago

"Yes I was in that film. It was shot in winter at the Hotel Julius Caesar in Queens Gardens in Bayswater. It took two days to shoot, and was famous for the fact that a few of the girls who stayed at the hotel trashed their rooms, and abused a member of staff who, as a result, tipped of the press as to what was going on. A well known newspaper planted a reporter on the roof of the hotel who was able via a spyhole to observe all that was going on. The next weekend it was headline news and I think GHM ultimately had a court case to answer.

Milton Reid was an ex showbiz pal of GHM who desperately wanted to appear in a GHM "blue movie" Busty Nicky Stanton was also in it and a lady I called Jada, but as you say she went on to more assignments under the Rosemary England name. The other girl in the H/C scenes was called Stevie Taylor who eventually went to the States and did more porno.

They were all terribly sweet and very keen to help the actors if you see what I mean. It was actually snowing outside whilst we were filming, so it felt a bit strange acting as if we were in a desert oasis.

GHM was pretty pissed throughout the whole thing, which is why it took two days to complete. Ah Happy days....."

 

Englisch Fur Anfanger (1982-1983)

Me and Englisch Fur Anfänger go back to the late 1990s, when during the heyday of satellite television in the UK we were able to pick up a shed-load of German TV channels. While waiting for our own Granada Plus to start broadcasting their archive shows like 'Supersonic', 'Bowler' and 'Mind Your Language' on a Saturday morning, I tended to channel surf around the more academic minded German TV channels, who would run these "How to Learn English" educational shorts which dated back to the 1970s and 1980s. The majority of these were from a TV series that ran from 1982 to 1983 called Englisch fur Anfänger ('English for Beginners'). Hosted by the bearded, scholarly looking Graham Pascoe, Englisch fur Anfänger centered around Jane and Russell, and their jolly adventures in England.

Jane and Russell

The actors who played these two roles, Jane Egan and Russell Grant, lent their real names to their onscreen characters. These names however are the only consistent aspect to the characters, who are otherwise reinvented from episode to episode. In some Jane and Russell are a married couple, in others they are brother and sister, while sometimes they are co-workers. Russell's occupation also varies from episode to episode, from policeman to news reporter, travel agent, driving instructor, history professor, pop star and tennis player, Russell Grant has done ‘em all. German audiences sure must have thought it was easy to change jobs in 1980s Britain. Russell is even able to change race at one point, showing up as a Middle-Eastern businessman in the episode 'A Working Breakfast'. Jane is also no slouch when it comes to jumping from one guise to another. Over the course of English Fur Anfänger, she is a journalist, a schoolgirl, an oversexed housewife, a Brummie darts player and channels her anarchic side for the episode 'A Stroll in Covent Garden' in which Jane and Russell are punks on the lookout for a book of stamps and a birthday card for Russell's grandmother (very punk of them). Each episode is designed to navigate the audience around the complexities of the English language and culture, with Graham Pascoe -proud owner of an extensive line of unfashionable sweaters- chipping in some questionable cultural observations like "many British people enjoy inventing things as a hobby" and "generally people in Great Britain prefer to live in their own houses, even if they are quite small". Typical Jane and Russell adventures include Jane and Russell going on a picnic ('A Picnic at Windsor') competing against each other in a darts match ('The Darts Champion') joining an amateur dramatics society ('Rehearsal') and catching the DIY bug for the episode 'Do It Yourself' in which Russell makes a hash of building a desk. The simplified, unnatural sounding dialogue "It's a T-Shirt...whose is it?...its Jane's...it belongs to her...its her's" was of course, written with an audience trying to learn English in mind. Still it can be very funny indeed when seen outside of that context. Series director Ian MacNaughton had previously worked with Spike Milligan and directed episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and there are more than a few nods in those directions as Englisch Fur Anfanger progresses. The Python influence is strong in the episode 'It Never Rains, but it Pours' in which Russell plays a Python-esque cretin with a handkerchief on his head, who breaks his leg, then finds himself at the mercy of a blood splattered nurse (played by Jane) and a doctor who is eventually revealed to be a vampire.

For a walk on the creepy side there is 'At the Lost Property Office' in which Jane and Russell are depicted as windup dolls, complete with oversized props surrounding them and huge keys on their backs. Can scatterbrained doll Jane, who works at the lost property office, put a smile on the face of a sad doll (Russell) who has lost his trumpet? It's a premise that for once justifies the robotic approach to dialogue delivery that Englisch Fur Anfänger dictated its actors adopt.

"I want to play a game"

The series takes a diversion into bargain basement Sci-Fi territory with 'How a Car is Made'. A deceptively mundane sounding episode that belies one of Englisch Fur Anfänger's wilder outings, which wouldn't be out of place in Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man. In this Jane and Russell get a guided tour around a car manufacturing plant run by Dr Bright (Dave Savile) and his assistant Ms Smile. Bright is an evil capitalist with a robotic hand, who has been replacing shop floor workers with robots. "Mistakes are made by men, robots can do no wrong" explains Bright. Naturally the plan backfires, with Ms Smile turning out to be an undercover robot and Bright's robot hand malfunctioning, forcing him to kill Russell, then strangle himself.

For a block of later episodes, Englisch fur Anfänger relocates Jane and Russell's adventures to America. Allowing veteran actor Alan Tilvern, who I'd always assumed to be American (but it seems was actually born in Whitechapel) to become a series regular. Most notably as the Richard Nixon parody character 'Senator Gatewater' in the episode 'Washington D.C'.

For a UK audience there is an extra layer of comedy to Englisch Fur Anfänger, on account of the lead actor and lead character being called Russell Grant, a name we've come to associate with the TV astrologer Russell Grant. Perhaps mindful of this, the non-astrological Russell Grant would frequently use his full name, Russell Keith Grant, during his acting career, which included roles in Brazil, Cry Freedom and a fair amount of TV work. While I can find nothing on the current whereabouts of Jane Egan and Graham Pascoe, it seems Russell Keith Grant now works as a London Tour Guide, the Englisch Fur Anfänger gig presumably being a useful primer for his later career. I'm hardly in a position to say whether Englisch Fur Anfänger is an effective tool for learning English, but the fact that it was still being repeated on German television decades after it was made, and now has found another lease of life thanks to YouTube, would suggest it serves that purpose. Whether Jane and Russell's wacky odyssey through the English language would actually make foreigners want to step foot in the UK is a different matter. As someone who watched the 'At the Lost Property Office' episode with me put it "the Germans must think we're all crazy".

All 51 episodes of Englisch fur Anfänger are available on YouTube, if you're watching them purely for entertainment purposes though, you can tune out around the 10 minute mark. The remainder of the half hour episodes consisting of the 'lesson' part of the programme, conducted in German by the bilingual Mr. Pascoe.