The Playbirds

The Playbirds (1978)

Tagline: "A murder thriller with thrilling ladies"
 
Starring: Mary Millington, Alan Lake, Glynn Edwards, Windsor Davies, Gavin Campbell

Featured Racecourses: Folkestone, Leicester, Newmarket

Director: Willy Roe
Producer: David Sullivan
Writer: Willy Roe

Release Date: July 1978
Runtime: 89 mins

IMDB Synopsis: Two detectives are drawn into the world of porn, while investigating murders of centrefolds.

Where to Buy: Amazon
Film Links: IMDB, Wikipedia

Personal Review


Harry Dougan (Alan Lake) is the owner of the Playbirds pornographic magazine and also the owner of a racehorse named Mr Playbird. For some unknown reason his centrefold models and being murdered one after the other and the police are called into investigate with Inspector Holbourne (Glynn Edwards), who likes a cheeky flutter, and Inspector Harry Morgan (Gavin Campbell) leading the case. They are tasked with finding the motive and tracking down the killer and all of Dougan's associates are under suspicion including the man himself. The police eventually decide to plant one of their female officers into Dougan's seedy world of porn to try and help unmask the killer.

This film has a certification of 18 and that's no wonder with full frontal nudity from start to finish and the lead actress herself, Mary Millington playing WPC Lucy Sheridan, was a pornographic actress and model. She sadly died of an overdose at the age of 33 in 1979 after her modelling work dried up and in another twist the lead actor Alan Lake also took his own life in 1984 just five months after his wife, the great Diana Dors, died of cancer. Both Alan and Mary played good roles in this film (Mary's body more than making up for her limited acting ability) and there were no sign of the tragedies to come.

Glynn Edwards (Dave from Minder) appeared as Inspector Holbourne, who seemed more concerned with betting on the horses than solving a murder mystery and Gavin Campbell (he of That's Life fame) was very competent as his assistant Inspector Harry Morgan. The Assistant Police Commissioner was played by Windsor Davies and although we didn't see much of him it was still nice to see the trademark moustache and hear his gruff welsh voice.  There were also minor roles for all rounder Kenny Lynch as the Police Doctor, Ballard Berkley (Major in Fawlty Towers) as the racing trainer and Dudley Sutton (Tinker Dill in Lovejoy) as the religous nut Hern.

There is plenty of horse racing coverage in the film and we get to see Harry's horse Mr Playbird in action at Newmarket and Leicester and there are possibly shots of Folkestone mixed in there as well (check movie stills below). The first racing sequence was filmed on the Newmarket Rowley course (you can cleary see the head on stand with the clock on top) but the finish of that horse race is all out of sequence, different numbers of runners and on different sides of the track and even a different racecourse thrown in as well. If anyone can decipher from the photos below whether footage from courses other than Leicester and Newmarket were included in the film please let me know.

The Playbirds is quite a fun and raunchy film despite all the murders but the racing element just seemed to having nothing to do with the plot - other than Harry Dougan's former jockey being a brief murder suspect. (Rating 5/10)

Favourite Quotes
Inspector Holbourne: "Gerry, it's Jack Holbourne, I'll have twenty quid on Breast Plate in the four-thirty, Breast Plate, how do you say, on the nipple"


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