Three PDF files documenting the films that played Portsmouth cinemas from Dec 1969 to Dec 1979, researched and compiled by Dr Peri Bradley for the now off-line website 1970sproject.co.uk. Collectively it is a fascinating look at a decade's worth of cinema going, as well as a clandestine peek into the lesser documented area of 'membership only' cinema clubs...aimed at the 'sophisticated, unshockable, with-it audience of today'. Many films which played to that crowd are now MIA including Michael Findlay's All Night Rider, The Sex Serum of Dr Blake (Voodoo Heartbeat), Andy Milligan's Tricks of the Trade, Layout for 5 Models, and another sighting of the lost Harrison Marks film Fornicon, which played Portsmouth in Feb 1976. 'The Happy Hooker and The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue' must surely lift the prize as the unlikeliest double-bill, with honourable mentions for 'Ransom + Ooh...You are Awful' and 'Holiday on the Buses + Fear is the Key'. The Tatler cinema's 'cine-cabaret' policy of live striptease and movie screenings sounds right out of the 'chocolate sandwich' scene in O Lucky Man! I wonder if Desiree who graced that stage in May 1971, was the same Desiree whose 'girl and the gorilla' routine was filmed by Stanley Long in the early 1960s. I have seen the advertised act 'The Devil and the Virgin' attributed to her, so they could be one in the same, but do keep in mind that there was nearly a decade between this live appearance and the Long film.
Thanks again to Dr Peri, for allowing me to (re) upload these bits of history
to the Internet.
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