Description
A few years ago I issued the soundtrack to Virgin Witch, the score to an underground 1971 kinky British London / posh stately home horror that seemed more like an excuse to show as many racy cars and devilish nude scenes as possible. This fleapit film was written by Hazel Adair – the writer of legendary long-running TV series Crossroads, and her business partner at the time Ken Walton (yes, the wrestling commentator). Virgin Witch was cheap and successful enough to allow the whole team another go at the sexploitation game through their newly formed production company Pyramid Films. Sex Clinic was the quick follow up; I say Sex Clinic, the initial cinematic title was Clinic Xclusive, which was also called With These Hands, which was also called La Masseuse Perverse. This film also came out in 1971 and they used the musical services of Ted Dicks once again. Dicks had originally met Adair in 1960 through a cast member performing in his first musical, Look Whos Here.
If you are not aware of the great Ted Dicks, his quick bio reads as follows: born London 1928, was educated through both grammar and art school and after National Service flirted with both art and music. He worked with a series of very talented song writers – including Barry Cryer – finally sparking properly with writer Myles Rudge. Together Dicks and Rudge had a hit with their musical And Another Thing which starred Lionel Blair and Bernard Cribbins. Their talents were spotted by producer George Martin and they followed this show success up with a series of truly classic novelty pop chart hits, again with Cribbins – Hole In The Ground and Right Said Fred. If you are not aware of the classic A Combination Of Cribbins LP they wrote, go and find it. It includes Gossip Calypso, a triumph of novelty song writing that somehow manages to squeeze in the lyric Oxy-aceteline welder, and is possibly the only song ever to do so. They wrote further hits (winning an Ivor Novello for A Windmill In Old Amsterdam) and were in constant demand throughout the 1960s and 1970s, working with artists such as Petula Clark, Matt Munro, Bruce Forsyth, Topol and Kenneth Williams.
By the late 1960s Ted had also penned a handful of instrumental library cues including the classic Busy Boy for the Standard Library company that got picked up as the theme for the brilliant TV kids fantasy show Catweazle in 1970. Its a light, kooky, hummable tune that lodged its way deep in the mind of any child under 12 over the following decade.
When I first got the reels for Sex Clinic Im not sure what I was sonically expecting – much of Dicks music blends musical hall with jazz and some brilliant novelty – and maybe I was also imagining a different kind of film to the one that was actually made. Turns out Sex Clinic is more like a sleazy drama than an erotic adventure – Ive read reviews that call it nothing more than a naked Crossroads. Even knowing this I had no idea what the music was going to sound like. So I was thrilled when it was almost the musical opposite of what I imagined. We have here a great, easy jazz score. Not a proggy, wild or free jazz score, this is lightish, vibes-led, bluesy and really charming, which gets slightly more lively when the naked pool party sequence kicks off, and drifts effortlessly into more seductive midnight moods as and when required. And having now seen the film, musically its unusually at odds with the on screen nudity, blackmail and revenge.
But like most of Teds work, the music sticks in your mind. Unlike the film. Which I suggest you try and avoid unless you like watching plump randy middle aged men with terrible hair pursue women half their age.
TRACK LISTING
There were no notes or titles to any of the cues on the reels. So I have just simply labeled the sides as per the reels that came in:
Side One:
Reel One – comprising Sex Clinic 1 and Sex Clinic 2
Side Two:
Reel Two – comprising Sex Clinic 3 and Sex Clinic 4
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