Booking In at the Clinic Exclusive (In Memory of Georgina Ward)

Georgina Ward as Julie Mason in 

Clinic Exclusive (dir. Don Chaffey, 1971)

 

Temptress with a velvet touch! 

Passionate ... Sensual and ... Dangerous!!

 

 

I. 

 

The British actress turned screenwriter Hazel Adair is probably best remembered as the co-creator of my sister's favourite soap Crossroads, which ran on UK TV from 1964 until 1988, attracting a large and loyal audience (despite critics and comics alike ridiculing the scripts, the sets, the performances, and the generally low production values). 

 

However, we're not here to discuss the merits or otherwise of Crossroads, but, rather, to shine a light on a rarely shown erotic melodrama written and produced by Adair in collaboration with her business partner Kent Walton - a sports commentator much loved as the voice of televised professional wrestling from 1955 to 1988 [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Directed by Don Chaffey and starring (the mysteriously beautiful) Georgina Ward as Julie Mason and Alex Davion as Lee Maitland - Clinic Exclusive (1971) [2] has to be one of the queerest films I've seen in a long time [3]. And although it might seem far removed from everybody's favourite King's Oak motel, as a matter of fact several of the cast had appeared in Crossroads. 

The plot, in a nutshell, involves a scheming young woman - Julie - exploiting her position as the owner of a rather dodgy private health clinic by selling sexual favours to her clients, male and female, whom she then blackmails for large amounts of money. This includes a lonely, older woman - Elsa Farson (played by Carmen Silvera) - who, spurned by Julie (with whom she's in love), decides to top herself.

 

When a local businessman, Lee Maitland, engages her services as a masseuse, Julie mistakenly falls for him, unaware that he is Elsa's son and intends to avenge his mother. 

 

And so, after Maitland fakes his death in a road accident that Julie helped to stage, he disappears with the tens of thousands of pounds that she had extracted from her clients. Julie is thus left to choose between admitting blackmail or remaining silent when charged with being complicit in Maitland's death.

 

 

III.

 

It might be pushing it a bit to describe Clinic Exclusive as a good film. But it's not a bad film, even if a bit depressing at times. And the outrageously posh actress Georgina Ward - daughter of the British Cabinet Minister George Ward and Anne Capel, whose father, Boy Capel, was a lover and muse of fashion designer Coco Chanel - is always a delight to watch on screen (with or without her clothes) [4]. 

As one respected film critic wrote at the time: 

"After the customary quota of coyly directed nude scenes in sauna bath and shower room – even less titillating than usual, since the clinic's clientele is predominantly middle-aged – Clinic Xclusive takes a turn for the better by developing into quite a neat, unpredictable revenge thriller. Script and direction are glossily efficient throughout, and Georgina Ward plays the ruthless go-getting heroine with some style. Altogether a surprisingly competent production, if only within the limits of its strictly catchpenny genre." [5]

 

Unfortunately, we have to note in closing how publication in the (hypocritical) press of rather racy stills from the film led to Georgina Ward having to withdraw an application to be a UK parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in the early 1970s [6]. 

 

Even more sadly, Ward’s acting career also stalled around this time. 

 

She died, in Mexico, aged 69, in June 2010. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Walton made his television wrestling commentary debut on the ITV network in November 1955 and remained in the role for 33 years. 

       At its peak in the 1970s, ITV's wrestling coverage, on World of Sport, could command up to 12 million viewers every Saturday afternoon, including my parents and, so it is often claimed, the Queen and Prince Philip. 

 

[2] The film's title was originally styled as Clinic Xclusive and was changed to Sex Clinic when the film was re-released in 1975. It is alternatively known as With These Hands. Unfortunately, no trailer for the film seems to be available online (if such still exists).  

 

[3] Thanks to Together TV, a UK-based channel that broadcasts on Freeview 83 (and which is also available on Sky 170, Virgin Media 269, and Freesat 164). 

      Rather amusingly, Together TV prides itself as being a channel that aims to inspire people to improve their lives and communities; I'm not entirely sure, therefore, how Clinic Exclusive has found its way on to the late night schedule (along with other '70s sexploitation movies, including Come Play with Me (dir. George Harrison Marks and starring Mary Millington, 1977)).   

 

[4] In 1958, Ward was one the last debutantes to be presented at Court to Queen Elizabeth II before the practice was discontinued. She was distantly related to, among others, Freda Dudley Ward, mistress of the future King Edward VIII and Camilla Parker Bowles, now Queen Camilla, consort of Charles III. 

      Fans of British TV from the '60s might recall seeing her in a series four episode of The Avengers - 'The Master Minds' (1965) - or in a couple of episodes of Danger Man. 

 

[5] Nigel Andrews, writing in The Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. 39, No. 456, p. 157 (January 1972). 

[6] Ward was a potential Labour candidate for the parliamentary constituency of Worcester, then held by Conservative Cabinet minister, Peter Walker and, until 1960, by her father, also a true blue Tory, so her standing down may have been something of a relief to him. 

 

 

On the Haunting Beauty of Sue Lloyd

Sue Lloyd (1939 - 2011)

 

'The dead they do not die - they seduce from beyond the grave ...'

I. 

 

I mentioned in a recent post written in memory of Brigit Forsyth [1], that, as I get older, I find my desire is increasingly tied to nostalgia and has effectively become a type of spectrophilia - i.e., sexual attraction to ghosts, or, as in my case, the haunting images of dead actresses from the 1960s and '70s (the decades in which I was born and grew up). 

 

One such actress of whom I particularly fond at the moment is Sue Lloyd, who guest starred in many much loved English TV shows during this period, including The Saint (1964 and '67), The Avengers (1965), Department S (1969), Randal and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1970), The Persuaders! (1971), and The Sweeney (1976) [2].

 

Lloyd also regularly appeared as secret agent Cordelia Winfield, alongside Steve Forrest in the British television series The Baron (1965-66), but is perhaps best remembered today for her long-running role as as Barbara Hunter (née Brady) in the British soap opera Crossroads [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Although Lloyd had studied dance as a child and, in 1953, won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School at Sadler's Wells Theatre, she unfortunately grew just a little too tall (5' 8") to play a swan princess. And so she became a model - even appearing once on the cover of Vogue - and a showgirl, before embarking on an acting career. 

 

Lloyd did also star in a number of films - including alongside Michael Caine in The Ipcress File (1965), Peter Cushing in the cult horror Corruption (1968), and Joan Collins in The Stud (1978) - but I'm not much of a cinephile and really only care (here at least) about her TV work.  

 

But what is it I like so much about Miss Lloyd, I hear you ask ... Well, simply put, she exuded the kind of dazzling beauty and sexual sophistication of the older woman which excited me as an adolescent and continues to work its magic some 50 years later ...

 

As Simon Farquhar writes in his obituary for the star who died in 2011 (aged 72):

 

"There was always something of the ghost of a fading Hollywood glamour queen possessing Sue Lloyd [...] With half-closed eyes, cigarette gravel voice and elegant, haughty poise, she brought an air of smouldering decadence and feline allure to often decidedly mundane productions, as if a world-weary Lauren Bacall was deeming to cross the Atlantic and play with the little people for a while." [4]    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lasses?' (2 Dec 2023): click here. 

 

[2] Unlike some other actors, Lloyd was delighted at the cult status much of her television work had acquired, and she happily contributed interviews and commentaries to subsequent DVD releases and responded to fan requests.

 

[3] Lloyd was in Crossroads from 1979 to 1985, so this slightly falls outside the period that interests me and is not really a genre of show that I particularly care for. 

[4] Simon Farquhar, writing in The Independent (30 Oct 2011): click here.

The Four Drakes: Part 2: Nick and Gabrielle

Drake is an Old English surname, derived from the Anglo-Saxon term for serpent, draca, and thus etymologically related to dragon (and not to the word for a male duck). There have been a number of illustrious individuals by the name of Drake, including Sir Francis Drake and the comic entertainer Charlie Drake, both of whom we discussed in part one of this post: click here. 

Below, I wish to discuss a famous pair of siblings by the name of Drake, beginning with the younger brother ... 

Nick Drake (1948 - 1974): First the Day after Tomorrow Must Dawn for Me

Posh singer-songwriter and musician, Nick Drake, is a fine example of what Nietzsche terms a posthumous individual - i.e., one who only comes into their own and finds fame once they're dead.   

The prodigiously talented Drake signed to Island Records whilst studying English literature at Cambridge, releasing his debut album - Five Leaves Left - in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums - Bryter Layter and Pink Moon - neither of which sold more than 5000 copies on initial release.

The fact that he was extremely reluctant to promote the material by playing live and giving interviews to the music press, obviously didn't help matters. But one suspects that such reticence was more due to the chronic shyness and depression from which he suffered than any desire to create a mystique about his own person. 

After the failure of his third album, Drake retreated to his parents home and, aged 26, he took an overdose of amitriptyline pills, a prescribed anti-depressant. A verdict of suicide was given and although this has been challenged by some who knew him, his sister Gabrielle prefers to believe he made a conscious decision to end his life, rather than consider his death the result of a tragic mistake.

Five years later, the release of a retrospective album entitled Fruit Tree (1979) triggered a critical reappraisal of his work and by the mid-1980s artists including Robert Smith and David Sylvian were naming Drake as an important influence. Thirty years later, and he's now sold over two-and-a-half million records in the UK and US markets.

Gabrielle Drake (1944 - ): Serious Glamour 

To be honest, Nick Drake is no more my cup of tea than Charlie Drake; though again, that's in no way to deny or denigrate his obvious talent and intelligence. He's just too much of an introspective hippie for my tastes (Nick - not Charlie).

But his older sister on the other hand, Gabrielle - now there's someone I have always loved to see on screen; be it as the purple-wigged Moonbase commander Lt. Gay Ellis in UFO (1970-71), or as motel boss Nicola Freeman in Crossroads (1985-87). Her appearance in a 1967 episode of The Avengers as Angora and, a decade later, as Penny the schoolteacher in an episode of The New Avengers, is also worthy of note and something for which I'm grateful.

I'm grateful too for the fact that, unlike some actresses, Gabrielle was always happy when young to get her kit off and not above appearing in a number of seventies sexploitation films, including Au Pair Girls (dir. Val Guest, 1972), in which she has a leading role as Randi Lindstrom (that's right, ha-ha! she's Danish).

Perhaps of more interest to my more literary-minded readers will be the fact that she also appeared as a passenger (sacrifice) in a short film entitled Crash! (dir. Harley Cokeliss) and based on a story in J. G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. The movie also featured the author talking about ideas that he would later develop into one of the great twentieth-century novels. As one critic rightly noted, the presence of Miss Drake brought serious glamour to urban alienation.

Finally, it needs to be said that Gabrielle has worked tirelessly to ensure her brother's name and music live on and it's clear that, rather touchingly, she remains his biggest fan. In 2014, she published a memoir of her brother and in 2018 she collected a Hall of Fame Folk Award on his behalf.

I wish she were my sister ...

Notes

The Avengers episode mentioned above was from Season 5 and entitled 'The Hidden Tiger' (first shown in the UK on 3 March 1967); The New Avengers episode was 'Dead Men are Dangerous' (first shown in the UK on 8 Sept 1977). 

To visit the official website of the estate of Nick Drake, please click here.

To visit the Gabrielle Drake fansite on Facebook, click here.