Hockey Girls’ Holiday (Mapatasi/Constable, 1971)

DIRECTOR: BORIS HOGSEYE. RUNNING TIME: 83 mins. VIDEO: PEEPSHOW. PRICE £17.99 CERT 18

The best known of Mapatasi’s popular series of soft-porn St Trinian’s parodies is now available on video. This episode sees the fifth-form hockey team on tour in France (actually East Sussex) and encountering the illegitimate male off-spring of a local count who are busy duelling to prove their right to his inheritance. This obviously involves several hockey matches and a contest to see who can bed the most under-age girls. The film was originally slated to be directed by legendary British porno director John Lindsay, but he was replaced by the pseudonymous Boris Hogseye after being charged with conspiring to publish obscene films. (Lindsay was accused of shooting several porno flicks at a West Midlands school – using the head boy as his leading man). Hogseye is believed to have been expatriate US nudie director William Hopper, probably best known for the 1958 hillbilly homo-filth epic The Ramrod Boys meet the Corn Hole Brothers. Hopper was himself a fugitive from justice (hence the pseudonym), wanted by the FBI in connection with an incident involving two baboons whilst shooting The Erotic Adventures of Captain Africa in Colorado in 1970. The credited producer, Roger Constable, is also thought to be a pseudonym, possibly hiding avuncular TV presenter Jack Hargeaves, who is rumoured to have bankrolled several soft-core pictures during the 1970s.

Made in a more innocent era, before the widespread inclusion of “hamburger shots” and “pop shots”, the film now seems quaintly amusing – rather like a Carry On with bared breasts. It does, however, include Daisy Tugoff (then popular starlet Hedey Heights) performing an astounding routine with a hockey stick. Also, the scene in which young Susie (Marla Queef) gives hand relief to two priests whilst hanging upside-down in the confessional box is still a jaw-dropper. There is also a stand-out performance from a well-known British comedian playing Old Marcel the Randy Groundsman. His expression as he reaches climax with Rebecca Tinter (Theresa Tiffin) was not the result of ecstasy, but rather a fatal heart attack. Unfortunately, this occurred mid-way through the shoot, before all of his scenes had been completed. Consequently, he was replaced by popular porn star Howard “Donkey Dong” Curtis (wearing a false beard) for his remaining scenes. The comedian’s family tried to hush-up the true nature of his demise – claiming it happened on the golf course – and had his name removed from the credits. Nonetheless, you are bound to recognise him, but we won’t spoil the surprise by naming him here!

Hockey Girls’ Holiday was followed by the inferior Hockey Girls on Heat, featuring a largely new performers, and the series began to founder. Nevertheless, this entry remains an entertaining, but undemanding sex-romp. Perfect for a quiet evening in with a box of tissues.