Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly
Encyclopedia
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly, released as Girly in North America
, is the name of a 1970
British horror-comedy cult film
. Based on a stage play by Maisie Mosco
entitled Happy Family (which was later adapted into a novella by screenwriter Brian Comport as "Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly"), the film is a dark and playful allegory
of the breakdown of the nuclear family of the 1950s as a result of the free love
movement of the 1960s.
in the English countryside, and whose names are synonymous with their roles within the family: Mumsy (the mother, Ursula Howells
), Nanny (the nanny
, Pat Heywood
), Sonny (the son, played by Howard Trevor), and Girly (the daughter, Vanessa Howard).
Despite being in their twenties, Sonny and Girly act like prepubescent children, dressing in English school uniforms and sleeping in giant cribs in a room full of toys. The family's lives are built around an elaborate role-playing fantasy, called "The Game", which is structured around a set of ill-defined yet strictly enforced rules. Because a rich childhood is incomplete without friends, Sonny and Girly regularly seek out male loners, the homeless, and hippie
s to lure back to their house (using a scantily clad Girly as lure), where they are then forced to play "The Game". Should the "new friends" refuse, they are "put on trial" and then "sent to the angels"-- a euphemism for being made the victim in snuff films produced by Sonny in which he ritualistically hunts down and murders the men on the manor grounds.
One night, Girly and Sonny stake out a swinging London
party, where they encounter a male prostitute (Michael Bryant
) and his latest client (Imogen Hassall
). An instant attraction develops between Girly and the man, who convinces his client to accompany the siblings for a night of carousing. Girly and Sonny take the couple to a playground, where they murder the woman by throwing her off of a large slide. The next morning, Sonny and Girly convince the hungover
man that he murdered the woman after a night of heavy drinking, and convince him to return to the manor with them. The prostitute—rechristened "New Friend"-- is outfitted in schoolboy clothes and subjected to an indeterminate period of torment "playing the game," during which he is repeatedly presented with his client's body as a reminder that the family has incriminating information about him.
After Mumsy makes sexual overtures to New Friend one evening, he gets the idea to turn the family against itself. "New Friend's" plot succeeds, as he creates sexual jealousy between the women after first sleeping with Mumsy and then Girly. Sonny, left out of the sexual politics, petitions to have New Friend "sent to the angels," resulting in Girly bludgeoning him to death with an antique mirror. Nanny attempts to secure New Friend for herself by murdering Mumsy with acid-tipped needles, but the attempt fails and Girly hacks Nanny to death with an axe and cooks her head for use in baked goods.
Rather than turn on one another, Mumsy and Girly declare a truce, deciding to "share" New Friend by alternating what days of the week each woman will be permitted to have sex with him. The two women agree, though ponder what will happen should either of them ever become bored with New Friend, with Mumsy declaring it as an inevitability. Preparing for this day, New Friend settles into Mumsy's room with the acid-tipped needles Nanny had attempted to kill Mumsy with, content to bide his time enjoying the women's company.
was used for exterior work and establishing shots in a number of British film productions requiring a gothic castle, most notably a number of Hammer horror films. One of Hammer's regular directors, Freddie Francis, became enamored of the building, and decided that he would like to take full advantage of the house as a setting for a movie. Francis resolved to break tradition by filming inside of the actual house instead of using sets or alternate locations for interiors, as had been done on all productions shot at Oakley Court in the past.
Francis hired screenwriter Brian Comport to write a script, with Francis' only condition being that it had to take place at a location modeled after Oakley Court and take full advantage of the house's interiors and grounds. Comport was unsure what kind of script to write until he saw a production of the short-lived play Happy Family by Maisie Mosco
, about a woman who leads her children, maid, and friends in an elaborate role-playing game after her husband abandons her following a hysterectomy. Neither comport nor Francis particularly liked the play (which itself drew influence from Shirley Jackson
's We Have Always Lived in the Castle
), but found it to be a good jumping-off point for "the kind of story" that would take place at Oakley Court. Little of the play's source material remains in the film, beyond the principal characters' names and the concept of a family bringing home people to join their role-playing game (notably, Sonny dies midway through the play, there is a female "new friend" who appears in the second half, and the play ends with Mumsy and Nanny professing their suppressed lesbian
love for one another and deciding to poison everyone so that they can be together). Modern film critics point to the film as a possible influence on Stanley Kubrick
's The Shining, for a scene in which Nanny hacks through the panel of a door with an axe, exposing her face to the room's occupant; the scene predates the infamous "Here's Johnny" sequence in The Shining by over a decade.
Comport's decision to imply incest
in an early scene between Sonny and Girly led to difficulty with censors, and helped to hinder the film's promotional campaign and reception of a wide release. Comport had initially toyed with the idea of making the siblings' incestuous relationship more overt (the siblings are openly incestuous in the source play), but ultimately decided against it. Coincidentally, another British horror film released concurrently with Girly, Goodbye Gemini
, also dealt with themes of consensual sibling incest, and the two films fell victim to a campaign against indecency in cinema.
The film received a limited release, including a brief run in North America as Girly, where it opened to positive reviews, including one in Variety
. The film was subsequently released to VHS in North America (again under the title of Girly); copies proved difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, as the organizers of a Freddie Francis film festival in 2004 were unnable to turn up a print or VHS copy of the film to screen. Around 2006, bootleg copies of the film began to surface on the internet. Shortly thereafter, Salvation Films
announced that they had obtained the rights to release Girly on DVD. The release entered development hell
, with Salvation promising the film's upcoming release on its website for the next three years. In the interim, Freddie Francis passed away, eliminating hopes of a potential director's commentary. Salvation ultimately sold their rights to Scorpion Releasing, who recorded an interview with writer Brian Comport and obtained a radio interview with Francis regarding the film to be included as special features. The DVD was released on March 30, 2010, with remastered audio and video.
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, is the name of a 1970
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
British horror-comedy cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. Based on a stage play by Maisie Mosco
Maisie Mosco
Maisie Mosco was an author. Between 1979 and 1998 she wrote 16 books, including a wellknown series of 3 books about a Russian Jewish family who around 1900 fled from pogroms and emigrated to north Manchester in England.She died in London on 31 October 2011.-External links:*...
entitled Happy Family (which was later adapted into a novella by screenwriter Brian Comport as "Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly"), the film is a dark and playful allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of the breakdown of the nuclear family of the 1950s as a result of the free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
movement of the 1960s.
Plot
The film's principal characters are the members of a wealthy English family living in a secluded manor houseManor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
in the English countryside, and whose names are synonymous with their roles within the family: Mumsy (the mother, Ursula Howells
Ursula Howells
Ursula Howells was an English actress whose elegant presence kept her much in demand for roles in film and television....
), Nanny (the nanny
Nanny
A nanny, childminder or child care provider, is an individual who provides care for one or more children in a family as a service...
, Pat Heywood
Pat Heywood
Patricia Heywood in Gretna Green, Scotland) is a British character actress who has appeared in stage productions, movies, and television. Married to Oliver Neville, the former principal of RADA.-Career:...
), Sonny (the son, played by Howard Trevor), and Girly (the daughter, Vanessa Howard).
Despite being in their twenties, Sonny and Girly act like prepubescent children, dressing in English school uniforms and sleeping in giant cribs in a room full of toys. The family's lives are built around an elaborate role-playing fantasy, called "The Game", which is structured around a set of ill-defined yet strictly enforced rules. Because a rich childhood is incomplete without friends, Sonny and Girly regularly seek out male loners, the homeless, and hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s to lure back to their house (using a scantily clad Girly as lure), where they are then forced to play "The Game". Should the "new friends" refuse, they are "put on trial" and then "sent to the angels"-- a euphemism for being made the victim in snuff films produced by Sonny in which he ritualistically hunts down and murders the men on the manor grounds.
One night, Girly and Sonny stake out a swinging London
Swinging London
Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene that flourished in London, in the 1960s.It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the...
party, where they encounter a male prostitute (Michael Bryant
Michael Bryant (actor)
Michael Dennis Bryant was a British stage and television actor.-Biography:Bryant attended Battersea Grammar School and after service in the Merchant Navy and Army, he attended drama school and appeared in many productions on the London stage. He made his film debut in 1955...
) and his latest client (Imogen Hassall
Imogen Hassall
Imogen Hassall was an English actress who appeared in 33 films during the 1960s and 1970s.- Early life :...
). An instant attraction develops between Girly and the man, who convinces his client to accompany the siblings for a night of carousing. Girly and Sonny take the couple to a playground, where they murder the woman by throwing her off of a large slide. The next morning, Sonny and Girly convince the hungover
Hangover
A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dysphoria, diarrhea and thirst, typically after the...
man that he murdered the woman after a night of heavy drinking, and convince him to return to the manor with them. The prostitute—rechristened "New Friend"-- is outfitted in schoolboy clothes and subjected to an indeterminate period of torment "playing the game," during which he is repeatedly presented with his client's body as a reminder that the family has incriminating information about him.
After Mumsy makes sexual overtures to New Friend one evening, he gets the idea to turn the family against itself. "New Friend's" plot succeeds, as he creates sexual jealousy between the women after first sleeping with Mumsy and then Girly. Sonny, left out of the sexual politics, petitions to have New Friend "sent to the angels," resulting in Girly bludgeoning him to death with an antique mirror. Nanny attempts to secure New Friend for herself by murdering Mumsy with acid-tipped needles, but the attempt fails and Girly hacks Nanny to death with an axe and cooks her head for use in baked goods.
Rather than turn on one another, Mumsy and Girly declare a truce, deciding to "share" New Friend by alternating what days of the week each woman will be permitted to have sex with him. The two women agree, though ponder what will happen should either of them ever become bored with New Friend, with Mumsy declaring it as an inevitability. Preparing for this day, New Friend settles into Mumsy's room with the acid-tipped needles Nanny had attempted to kill Mumsy with, content to bide his time enjoying the women's company.
Production
Due to its proximity to Bray Studios, Oakley CourtOakley Court
Oakley Court is a Victorian Gothic country house set in overlooking the River Thames at Water Oakley in the civil parish of Bray in the English county of Berkshire. It was built in 1859 and is currently a luxury hotel. It has been often used as a film location.-History:The Court was built in 1859...
was used for exterior work and establishing shots in a number of British film productions requiring a gothic castle, most notably a number of Hammer horror films. One of Hammer's regular directors, Freddie Francis, became enamored of the building, and decided that he would like to take full advantage of the house as a setting for a movie. Francis resolved to break tradition by filming inside of the actual house instead of using sets or alternate locations for interiors, as had been done on all productions shot at Oakley Court in the past.
Francis hired screenwriter Brian Comport to write a script, with Francis' only condition being that it had to take place at a location modeled after Oakley Court and take full advantage of the house's interiors and grounds. Comport was unsure what kind of script to write until he saw a production of the short-lived play Happy Family by Maisie Mosco
Maisie Mosco
Maisie Mosco was an author. Between 1979 and 1998 she wrote 16 books, including a wellknown series of 3 books about a Russian Jewish family who around 1900 fled from pogroms and emigrated to north Manchester in England.She died in London on 31 October 2011.-External links:*...
, about a woman who leads her children, maid, and friends in an elaborate role-playing game after her husband abandons her following a hysterectomy. Neither comport nor Francis particularly liked the play (which itself drew influence from Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...
's We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the final novel by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962, three years before her death in 1965. In 1966, the novel was adapted into a play by Hugh Wheeler...
), but found it to be a good jumping-off point for "the kind of story" that would take place at Oakley Court. Little of the play's source material remains in the film, beyond the principal characters' names and the concept of a family bringing home people to join their role-playing game (notably, Sonny dies midway through the play, there is a female "new friend" who appears in the second half, and the play ends with Mumsy and Nanny professing their suppressed lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
love for one another and deciding to poison everyone so that they can be together). Modern film critics point to the film as a possible influence on Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's The Shining, for a scene in which Nanny hacks through the panel of a door with an axe, exposing her face to the room's occupant; the scene predates the infamous "Here's Johnny" sequence in The Shining by over a decade.
Comport's decision to imply incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
in an early scene between Sonny and Girly led to difficulty with censors, and helped to hinder the film's promotional campaign and reception of a wide release. Comport had initially toyed with the idea of making the siblings' incestuous relationship more overt (the siblings are openly incestuous in the source play), but ultimately decided against it. Coincidentally, another British horror film released concurrently with Girly, Goodbye Gemini
Goodbye Gemini
Goodbye Gemini is a 1970 thriller directed by Alan Gibson from the novel Ask Agamemnon by Jenni Hall.-Plot:Jacki and Julian Dewar, a pair of fraternal twins, arrive via bus to London; they are home from university on Spring break, and their father is in Mexico on business...
, also dealt with themes of consensual sibling incest, and the two films fell victim to a campaign against indecency in cinema.
The film received a limited release, including a brief run in North America as Girly, where it opened to positive reviews, including one in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
. The film was subsequently released to VHS in North America (again under the title of Girly); copies proved difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, as the organizers of a Freddie Francis film festival in 2004 were unnable to turn up a print or VHS copy of the film to screen. Around 2006, bootleg copies of the film began to surface on the internet. Shortly thereafter, Salvation Films
Salvation Group
Salvation Group is a UK based media company, specialising in exploitation film and alternative music. The company's original name and current trading name is Redemption Films.-History:...
announced that they had obtained the rights to release Girly on DVD. The release entered development hell
Development hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
, with Salvation promising the film's upcoming release on its website for the next three years. In the interim, Freddie Francis passed away, eliminating hopes of a potential director's commentary. Salvation ultimately sold their rights to Scorpion Releasing, who recorded an interview with writer Brian Comport and obtained a radio interview with Francis regarding the film to be included as special features. The DVD was released on March 30, 2010, with remastered audio and video.