Stanley Long always maintained that he never made
stronger, hardcore versions of his British sex films, separating himself from
such practitioners as his former business partner Derek Ford. However, around
44 minutes of recently unearthed footage has a different tale to tell. We have
'Under the Counter' author Oliver Carter to thank for saving this 35mm footage
from imminent destruction, which reveals that Long did in fact shoot hardcore
for at least three of his productions. Namely, Groupie Girl (1970), Naughty
(1971), and On the Game (1974).
The additional 4 minutes, 48 seconds from Naughty
-Long's 1971 look at the history of pornography- consists of Long filming
Scottish blue filmmaker John Lindsay in action. In front of Long and Lindsay's
cameras are porn actors Peter Vernon and Lucienne Camille alias Sylvia Bayo
having real sex during the making of Lindsay's blue movie 'Sex After School'.
There is, of course, a great deal more explicit imagery here than in the
softcore version of Naughty that we are more accustomed too. In a memorable
moment Vernon shows off his physical prowess by lifting Lucienne up in the air,
then displays his sexual prowess by bringing her down in the reverse cowgirl
position, before proceeding to have real sex with her, first on a couch and
then on the floor.
It's valuable footage in the sense of allowing us a
prolonged look at a Lindsay film being made, and of the elusive 'Sex after
School' a Lindsay short which I don't believe has ever resurfaced in full. At
the same time, Long is merely filming someone else filming hardcore here,
rather than being the instigator of the material himself. This is not the case
with the footage from Groupie Girl and On the Game.
The general consensus among those who have so far
viewed the 17 minutes, 41 seconds of hardcore material shot for Groupie Girl is
that it may have been made a couple of years after the film itself, since it
features no actors from the original film. In their book 'Immoral Tales', Pete
Tombs and Cathal Tohill claimed that Groupie Girl was released in France as
'Les Demi-Sels De La Perversion' with hardcore scenes.
Immoral Tales assumed
that the hardcore must have been filmed and inserted by a French distributor.
The existence of hardcore footage specifically shot for Groupie Girl however
now makes it more likely that Long himself went back and shot new footage for
the film in order to meet the demands of more liberal territories like France.
The IMDB records July 1974 as the French release of Groupie Girl, tying in with
the idea of the hardcore footage being filmed later than the film.
-In the first additional scene, a band member,
travelling in the back of a van, unzips his fly, wakes up a sleeping groupie
and insists on her giving him a blowjob. He then throws her onto a filthy
mattress, tears off her clothes and has rear entry sex with her, this is
followed by further fellatio. The male lead in this scene is Mike Gallagher,
who was in the John Lindsay blue movie 'Betrayed' alongside Mary Millington,
and later resurfaced in the Millington documentary 'True Blue Confessions'.
-In the 2nd additional scene, two groupies -one of whom is played by Jacqui Rigby- make out with each other.
-The third scene ventures into S&M. Handcuffed to a bed, Jacqui Rigby is ridden from behind by a band member. She has a gag in her mouth and is hit several times with a cane. The scene ends with the couple stopping their activities and the man responding to something said off camera, presumably taking direction from Long.
-In the fourth scene, two groupies in the back of a van jointly fellate a band member.
-In the fifth scene, there is more fellatio, this time being performed under the bedsheets. It is likely this footage was intended to be inserted into the scene where James Beck's character wakes up the band and complains about them sleeping in late.
-In the sixth, and final additional scene, a man and a blonde woman become sexually aggressive towards a groupie, tying her spread eagled to the floor and stripping off her underwear. They then start breaking raw eggs over her body, and sensually rub egg yoke over her, in what could be seen as a prelude to On the Game's creme bun/food fetish scene, albeit using the raw materials. The egg yoke rub down is intercut with a separate couple having more conventional, non egg based sex. The egg man begins beating the bound groupie with a cat o'nine tails before receiving a blowjob from her.
My initial reaction to this footage was to attribute it to Groupie Girl director Derek Ford, it's combination of kink and hardcore seemingly being more in Ford's wheelhouse. The problem with that line of thinking is that the additional footage for On the Game is near identical in terms of the shooting style and sexual content. On the Game was a solo Stanley Long project, with no involvement from Derek Ford at all, therefore Ford can't be held responsible for the On the Game footage, nor the additional Groupie Girl footage. It should be mentioned that the original Groupie Girl cast members I have spoken to, do tend to remember Stanley Long over Derek Ford. One even expressed surprise that Long wasn't the credited director of the film, since Long appeared to have directed a fair amount of Groupie Girl, but for whatever reason never took a co-director credit. It is ironic that Ford has been historically vilified as the wrong 'un of the Ford-Long team, and the one more willing to push the envelope. Whereas the reality now seems to be that while Derek Ford was indeed shooting additional 'continental' style footage for his early 1970s productions, he didn't film any hardcore until a few, reportedly brief scenes for his 1974 comedy Keep It Up Jack. Meanwhile Stanley Long may have beat Ford to the punch by filming hardcore for Groupie Girl and On the Game, much of which is of a disturbing and sexually rough nature. From a 21st century perspective, Long's porn footage doesn't quite behave in the way we've come to expect hardcore too. While real, penetrative sex is visibly taking place in this footage, Long rarely lingers on it in close-ups, as is the universal approach in hardcore. What's also notable is the total absence of money shots in these scenes.
The additional footage for 1974's On the Game -Long's companion piece to Naughty about the history of prostitution-runs 23 minutes, 6 seconds, and unlike the hardcore material for Groupie Girl does feature original cast members, sets and costumes from the film itself.
-The first additional scene sees the return of the blonde woman from the egg yoke scene in Groupie Girl. A veteran of the era's porn, she is familiar as Clyda Rosen's Groupie galpal in the Harrison Marks hardcore short Autograph Hour, and also appeared in films by John Lindsay (Desire, Frustration) and Lasse Braun (Rope, Blondie's Lesson in Statistics). The BGAFD website, which ascribes THX-1138 type names to porn performers whose names aren't known has her listed as XNK0161. This scene opens with an exchange of money between punter and prostitute...playing the latter XNK0161 strips down to fetishistic underwear, before the john eats her pussy and ass. Echoing the sexual bent of the Groupie Girl footage, he then takes to ridding her from behind whilst beating her with a cat o'nine tails.
-In the second scene....well I'm come to that later, it's 'something special'.
-The third scene is a sexual assault with lots of face slapping, forced fellatio and spanking, this time taking place in a cell with hay on the floor. Therefore it's likely this would have been inserted into the 'Witchfinder General' type section of On the Game depicting the persecution of prostitutes in 16th century England.
-In the fourth scene two sailors frolic with two prostitutes, the sex here is prolonged but without showing hardcore detail. Given the costumes this presumably would have been used for the section of On the Game set in the New Orleans brothel.
-The fifth additional scene is from the WW1 set, mobile brothel segment. A prostitute reads a book whilst indifferently giving a German officer a hand job. He becomes agitated, knocks the book to the floor and demands fellatio.
-The sixth additional scene is once again set at the WW1 mobile brothel. The same prostitute orally services a second German officer, he wraps a cushion around his head in ecstasy, but eventually runs away.
-The seventh additional scene is an extension of the final scene in On the Game. Lucienne Camille plays a nurse who services an old geezer behind a hospital cubical screen. There's fellatio and penetration shots featuring Lucienne, but it seems the elderly actor in the scene wasn't recalled for the hardcore footage. The male body used in the hardcore shots is blatantly that of a younger man, and tellingly Long keeps the face of the male body double off screen.
I've saved the most mind blowing revelation till last, for the 2nd batch of additional footage from On the Game features none other than June Palmer performing hardcore. June was of course, a legendary glamour model from the sixties, who absolutely no one has ever suspected of appearing in hardcore. I'm rarely surprised by anything these days, but I was taken aback to find myself watching June Palmer sucking cock on film. Her male co-star here was in fact her real life partner Arthur Howell. A stuntman by trade, who later worked on An American Werewolf in London, Howell is another unlikely porn performer. The extended version of their scene together in On the Game also sees Palmer masturbating Howell, before straddling him, although there are no penetration shots. Having only been familiar with this scene in the softcore edit of On the Game, I've often wondered why Howell and Palmer performed the scene wearing facemasks, but since we now know that this scene was originally hardcore, their reasoning for partly concealing their identities now begins to make sense.
To the layman this 44 minutes of footage from Groupie Girl, Naughty and On the Game will just appear to be standard hardcore, yet to those into the history of these things, this footage is a game changer. Altering the way we look at the careers of Stanley Long and June Palmer, maybe even the British sex film in general. Of course, once you become aware of just how widespread the practice of shooting 'continental' footage was, it becomes difficult to watch any British film from the sixties or seventies without wondering if their was ever a sexier, dirtier version out there. In the cases of Groupie Girl, Naughty and On the Game, the answer proves to be a big fat 'YES'.
Again I tip my hat to Oliver Carter for both rescuing this footage and allowing me to review it. An article about his rediscovery of the Long hardcore footage can be found on his under-the-counter.com website. Hopefully in the near future, a boutique label will come along and bring this porn treasure trove to a wider audience.
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