The Playbirds (1978)
A serial killer is murdering the girls sleazy Alan Lake uses as centerfolds for his Playbirds magazine. The police are f*cking useless - seriously. Two murders happen to girls supposedly under police protection - so beat bobby Mary Millington goes undercover at Playbird magazine in a bid to snare the killer.
To say this is a Mary Millington film she must have all of two minutes screen time during the first hour. She's in it more for the final 25 minutes. However it becomes clear why she's not given many scenes of dialogue. She simply isn't a very good actor and speaks her lines as if reading a cue card. A pity as Mary seems a very likable girl and other than the sex and stripping scenes i can certainly see her appeal.
Last night was my second viewing of The Playbirds. It's not bad with a couple of effective kills, especially the final one which is a proper downer, but too much of it is given up to scenes of horse racing and or the police acting generally useless. In truth this isn't as good as the film it borrowed it's plot from, 1959's Cover Girl Killer.
It's far and away the best movie Mary appeared in and i was pleased to see how lovely the restored dvd picture looked on my tv, thankfully justifying not purchasing the Blu-ray box set.
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