Not many British nudie films can claim to be the byproduct of a property purchase,or star a 25 year old Pauline Collins but those are the two claims to fame of Secrets of a Windmill Girl. Set around the famous striptease venue The Windmill Theatre-which prided itself on being the only theatre in London to stay open during the blitz-Secrets of a Windmill Girl's curious start in life is arguably allot more interesting than the final result. The Windmill's owner Vivian Van Damm had died and his daughter Sheila sold the Windmill to Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger then operating under the name the Compton Cinema Group. Together they had started one of the first 'membership only' cinemas,which used a legal loophole to bypass the censor and show uncut sex films (with names like Love Play Between Friends and Society of Shame) to men paying 10 shillings for year long membership. Compton had begun film production of their own and naturally enough it wasn't long before they hit on the idea to make a nudie film in and about their own premises. By all accounts Secrets of a Windmill Girl was originally envisioned as a straightforward recording of an average night in a striptease venue-showing the acts and the real people behind the glitz and the glamour. An idea later realized in James Katz's 1977 documentary The Rise and Fall of Ivor Dickie. The film didn't quite pan out as such however,and this footage was woven into a fictional narrative-typical stuff of B-movies and lurid paperbacks-charting the career of Windmill girl Pat Lord (Pauline Collins) from cradle to "burnt out husk, on the verge of a nervous breakdown". Pat's fate is no mystery,she dies in a drug-fuelled car accident at the beginning of the film,scenes of an Inspector chatting to her distraught best friend and fellow Windmill girl Linda Grey form the wraparound sequence of her story. First seen as highly unconvincing schoolgirls Pat and Linda begin their careers in a shoe shop working for a bald letch but are soon off seeking fame and fortune at the Windmill theatre. Both duly pass the audition and are soon fully fledged Windmill girls but while Linda remains a demure 'nice' girl,daredevil Pat is soon hanging around coffee bars and dancing on tables ("she was beginning to get a star complex" observes Linda). Not to mention partying with bohemians,swingers,lesbians and West End producers. Fragments of the original 'striptease-verite' concept still exist in the film,as Linda feels obliged not just to tell the Inspector about Pat but just about everyone else who works the Windmill from Irene from Kent to Ben the doorman,Sienna and Deirdre the rival flat mates etc,etc. Peeks into the mundane home life of these (real) people are certainly a far cry from the glittery netherworld they inhabit by night (and the sensationalist nature of the fictional plot). Linda also tells the Inspector about the Windmill's acts as well-a good excuse as any to pad the film out with the routines of second rate comics,magicians and song-and-dance men. While its fascinating to see the kind of show that passed for cheap thrills throughout the 40's,50's and 60's,its also quite clear why Compton thought the proceedings needed some fictional oomph in the form of Pat's exploits. Aside from 'the boys and girls of the Windmill' there are quite a few characters here-clearly jobbing around the West End at the time-who would break out of the poverty row milieu. Peter Gordeno later of UFO essentially plays himself a dance choreographer in the film,there's a brief glimpse of current day Eastender Derek Martin towards the end as well as Dana Gillespie strumming away in the background of a swinger's party scene. Dana looks uncomfortable-and not without good reason-the obscenely tight top the producers have squeezed her into is enough to warrant the film's X certificate in itself.
By rights the unlikely mixture of dope-smoking,catfights,stripping and Pauline Collins sounds like it should make for a not-unentertaining film,unfortunately Arnold Louis Miller wasn't what you would call the worlds most exciting director and the end result can be a bit of a chore to get though. Miller's career lay almost exclusively in early nudist films and later cinema programme filler travelogues,though Windmill Girl suggests the work of someone prolific in television ads and public information films of the time which it shares a flat, highly set-bound look. Only two sequences-the climax and a swinging party turned gang rape suggest any real flair. The latter,all nightmarish red tinted P.O.V. shots of Pat being overpowered by stocking masked perverts being worthy of a psychedelic horror film,while the former is the stuff of great kitchen sink drama with Pat hollering to a grotesquely staggish crowd how she's gonna be a big star of the West End. "I am a real artiste"she tells the crowd who in turn drown her out with cries of "c'mon dear,get em off'.
By the time the film was released the Windmill had closed and it must have seemed dated even then,Cinema X referred to as a 'collectors corner' item. The sentimental song at the end of the film "the Windmill girls they were so gay,but now its over,they've gone away" seems to mourn not only the passing of the ill-fated Pat but of an age. However like many 'before they were famous' features Secrets of a Windmill Girl has had a second life. It was released on UK video in the early 1980s with the tape claiming to offer punters Pauline Collins "as you've never seen her before". They also hacked the title down to Secrets in order to disguise the films vintage. More than likely Pauline has long forgotten about Secrets of a Windmill Girl or at least doesn't go to great lengths to have films from her past suppressed,unlike ahem a certain Lady Weinberg. So now its back on US DVD and you can see her in the film and on the cover in all her fallen woman with a beehive glory.
By rights the unlikely mixture of dope-smoking,catfights,stripping and Pauline Collins sounds like it should make for a not-unentertaining film,unfortunately Arnold Louis Miller wasn't what you would call the worlds most exciting director and the end result can be a bit of a chore to get though. Miller's career lay almost exclusively in early nudist films and later cinema programme filler travelogues,though Windmill Girl suggests the work of someone prolific in television ads and public information films of the time which it shares a flat, highly set-bound look. Only two sequences-the climax and a swinging party turned gang rape suggest any real flair. The latter,all nightmarish red tinted P.O.V. shots of Pat being overpowered by stocking masked perverts being worthy of a psychedelic horror film,while the former is the stuff of great kitchen sink drama with Pat hollering to a grotesquely staggish crowd how she's gonna be a big star of the West End. "I am a real artiste"she tells the crowd who in turn drown her out with cries of "c'mon dear,get em off'.
By the time the film was released the Windmill had closed and it must have seemed dated even then,Cinema X referred to as a 'collectors corner' item. The sentimental song at the end of the film "the Windmill girls they were so gay,but now its over,they've gone away" seems to mourn not only the passing of the ill-fated Pat but of an age. However like many 'before they were famous' features Secrets of a Windmill Girl has had a second life. It was released on UK video in the early 1980s with the tape claiming to offer punters Pauline Collins "as you've never seen her before". They also hacked the title down to Secrets in order to disguise the films vintage. More than likely Pauline has long forgotten about Secrets of a Windmill Girl or at least doesn't go to great lengths to have films from her past suppressed,unlike ahem a certain Lady Weinberg. So now its back on US DVD and you can see her in the film and on the cover in all her fallen woman with a beehive glory.