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.
