I highly recommend this book ‘Under the Counter – Britain’s Trade in
Hardcore Pornographic 8mm films’, which has proven to be an absolute goldmine
of information about British blue movies.
Beginning with the primitive b&w efforts of the 1960s and taking the
story up to the censorship axe coming down in 1984 in the form of the video
recordings act. In the process Oliver
Carter’s book pieces together a gripping tale of police corruption, porn entrepreneurs,
live sex shows, taboo breaking 8mm films, obscenity trials, and leaves no stone
unturned when it comes to Soho in its sex driven heyday.
Those early hardcore loops (referred to at the time, and in this book,
as ‘rollers’ ) have often left inquisitive souls, whose interest in them goes
beyond the masturbatory, to ask ‘who made these movies, and just what was their
story’. Questions that get an answer in
Under the Counter, which puts names to those anonymous filmmakers, explains how
they came to be involved in the porn trade, the difficulties faced by these
often untrained filmmakers, how the films were distributed around Soho and the
inevitable cash payments slipped to bent policeman in smoky pubs, which guaranteed
they stayed in business. The collusion
between corrupt members of the Obscene Publications Squad and the London
underworld, which allowed hardcore to flourish in Soho under their watchful
eyes, is the main theme of Under the Counter.
Meaning that this book is equally at home in the true crime section as
it is in the halls of academia. When it
comes to tales of criminality, there is no shortage of explosive moments in
Under the Counter. Quite literally in
the case of ‘Fat’ Bill Hicks, a bookshop owner who upon being shaken down by
gangsters, responded by reaching below the counter, not for the expected wad of
cash, but for a hand grenade. Then there
is the case of the unfortunate shoplifter, whose attempt to steal from a shop
belonging to ‘Godfather of Soho’ Bernie Silver, resulted in the thief being hustled
upstairs by Silver’s henchmen, hung from the ceiling then ‘stripped and cut
down his back with a bayonet’. Even in
such an environment, pornographer Mike Freeman stands out as this book’s wild
card, as well as its most compelling and terrifying character. Freeman’s lifelong hatred of the law, and
devil-may-care attitude to pornography (his casting call extending to three
underage schoolgirls) gradually made him a liability in an environment where
pornographers were expected to be on cosy terms with crooked cops, and not draw
outside attention to their activities.
Freeman’s inability to work within such a system resulted in him being essentially
blackballed from the dirty bookshop circuit, and if his self mythologizing is
to be believed, marked for death.
Freeman comes across like British porn’s version of Bobby Beausoleil, a
man who feared nothing, and like Beausoleil ended up with blood on his
hands. Infamously killing an associate in
1969 by stabbing him to death ‘in self defence’ 89 times.
As the story moves on into the 1970s, it sees the rise of the celebrity
pornographer, with ‘membership only’ cinema owner David Waterfield and Scottish
blue filmmaker John Lindsay appearing on TV and in the media. A far cry from their shadowy, publicity shy,
porn forefathers. Both men portrayed themselves
as sexual freedom fighters and anti-censorship campaigners, the ideological opponents
of the likes of Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford. An image that in Waterfield’s case appears to
have been genuine, he did lend his support to several counter culture groups of
the period. Whereas Lindsay’s claims to
be motivated by a social conscience feels a bit more contrived and
questionable.
The amount of research in this book is exemplary, there are stories told here about the blue movie trade that I’d feared had been lost to time, and characters brought to life who I’d only heard of passing. Like the mysterious Ivor Cook and German porn smuggler turned producer Walter ‘Charlie Brown’ Bartkowski. Under the Counter even manages to bring new material to the table when it comes to comparatively well documented figures like Freeman and Lindsay. Among the many, many revelations in this book is that both are now deceased, their deaths receiving little, if any, public acknowledgement until Under the Counter’s publication. Freeman passed away in June 2021, while John Lindsay died way back in 2006. Which now explains why all attempts to track down and interview Lindsay during the last decade have never met with any success! Under the Counter also takes the opportunity to correct misinformation that has been allowed to slip out about British hardcore, providing evidence that the Mary Millington loop ‘Miss Bohrloch’ couldn’t have been made prior to the Watergate scandal (you’ll have to read the book to find out why). Meaning that Bohrloch likely dates from around 1972-1973, rather than the often cited 1969 or 1970 production date. It also retells the story of the BBC’s ill-fated attempt to film John Lindsay at work- as part of the Open University strand of programming- with more much clarity and accuracy than the account given in Stanley Long’s autobiography. Although Long’s portrayal of Lindsay as an untrustworthy character (Lindsay invited the BBC to Long’s penthouse and filmed pornography there without Long’s permission) is certainly validated by this lengthier account of the incident. Which suggests that Lindsay mentioning about it in the newspapers is what first got the BBC in trouble with the law, the broadcasters’ woes added to when Lindsay then sold his side of the story to the News of the World tabloid.
John Lindsay (1935-2006)
The appendix of this book alone –which documents around 1000 blue movies shot in Britain from 1960 to 1980- singles out Under the Counter as a ground breaking work in terms of film research. Offering a tantalising glimpse into an underbelly of the British sex film that exists beyond the pleasantries of Confessions of a Window Cleaner and 8mm glamour films, with perverse, yet oh-so-British titles like: The Carpet Fuckers, Prick Layers, Up Your Kilt and Vicar’s Fantasy. In another apparent first, Under the Counter shines a light on the comparatively small, but historically important, gay side of British hardcore, represented by Hard Dollar Hustler (Alan Purnell, 1977) thought to be Britain’s first feature length gay hardcore movie. As well as ‘Dial a Guy’ and ‘What a Gay Day’ by the seemingly up for anything Mike Freeman, who for all his unsavourily reputation did commendably refuse to take his gay movies off the market, ignoring legal advice to the contrary.
Under the Counter also wins personal approval from me for helping propagate
the bizarre legend of ‘A Schoolgirl Dreams of King Kong’. A hardcore short made
by British filmmakers for a German distributor, in which a young lady
fantasizes about being tied to King Kong’s penis, eventually causing the giant
ape to ejaculate over the New York skyline.
Trust me, that one really does belong in the ‘has to be seen to be
believed’ category.
22 year old Jennifer Eccles rides Kong's penis in 'A Schoolgirl Dreams of King Kong'
Under the Counter ends on a downbeat note (or upbeat note, depending on
your point of view) with the idealistic hopes of 1970s pornographers being thoroughly
crushed by the arrival of the Thatcher government and the censorship
stranglehold on the video industry.
Comments from a 1986 interview with John Lindsay reveals a defeated and
deflated man compared to the one who, only a few years before, had victoriously
walked away from court claiming he had all but legalised hardcore pornography
in Britain. A second volume of Under the
Counter, restarting the story in the mid-1980s and taking it up to the modern
day, is planned, but volume one alone is a considerable achievement in the
field of British sex film archaeology.
Others, from newspaper hacks to writers of speculative fiction, have
attempted to penetrate the subject of home-grown hardcore, but Under the
Counter has finally succeeded in gaining access to ‘the back room’ of this hitherto
clandestine part of British history.
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