The Amorous Milkman (1975)

Randy Milkman Davey bites off more than he can chew when he starts to deliver more than pints of milk to some of the bored housewives on his route. In a short space of time he finds himself... See full summary »

Director:

Derren Nesbitt

Writers:

Derren Nesbitt (screenplay), Derren Nesbitt (novel)

Stars:

Julie Ege, Diana Dors, Brendan Price

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Julie Ege	...	Diana
Diana Dors	...	Rita
Brendan Price	...	Davey
Donna Reading	...	Janice
Nancie Wait	...	Margo
Alan Lake	...	Sandy
Bill Fraser	...	Gerald
Fred Emney	...	Magistrate
Patrick Holt	...	Tom
Roy Kinnear	...	Sergeant
Ray Barrett	...	John
Anthony Sharp	...	Counsel
Megs Jenkins	...	Iris
Arnold Ridley	...	Cinema Attendant
Sam Kydd	...	Wilf

Storyline

Randy Milkman Davey bites off more than he can chew when he starts to deliver more than pints of milk to some of the bored housewives on his route. In a short space of time he finds himself engaged to two different women; on the receiving end of a bad beating from the local gangster whose girlfriend has been two-timing him with Davey; and finally he ends up in court on a rape charge when an irate husband comes home unexpectedly and discovers Terry and his wife in a compromising situation.

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Plot Keywords:

rape charge | female removes her clothes | lust | promiscuous woman | woman in bathtub | 

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Taglines:

He gave 'em much more than a pinta!

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

January 1975 (UK)

Also Known As:

Den sex - glade Melkemannen

Filming Locations:

Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lactifer Films

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Brendan Price receives an "introducing" credit.

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Quotes

Rita: [Gerald takes a piece of toast] I suppose you'd prefer butter?
Gerald: You know I haven't eaten butter since I saw "Last Tango in Paris". I have marge.
Rita: Must you be so coarse?

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Connections

References Last Tango in Paris (1972)

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Soundtracks

Freight Train
(uncredited)
Traditional

User Reviews

The worst film ever made in Britain.

Dingy, sleazy and dispiriting beyond belief: this is what the last days of the traditional post-Carry On film comedy in Britain came to, a film which is, however, indisputably the work of an auteur: writer-producer-director Derren Nesbitt, whose hopes of ever embarking on a long-term film-making career vanished when his wife filed for divorce on grounds of cruelty. The allegations of wife-beating hit the tabloids just as The Amorous Milkman was released, making the film an even more unpalatable proposition than it would have been anyway and pole-axing Nesbitt's acting career in the bargain.

So why am I posting a comment on this film now, about a year after seeing it, rather than any of the wonderful works I saw before it, and have seen since? Perhaps because in its desperate, queasy sexuality; its appallingly dingy photography (which looks as if they shot most of the film using natural light and a 40-watt bulb during a rainstorm); and its cast of once-great veteran actors (Kinnear, Ridley, Kydd) and of never-wases who, despite being in their twenties and early thirties, already seem old, perhaps aged by the hopelessness of their career prospects, in all of these things, we have a distorting "mirror for England" as it could still be, to a certain extent, then. It's morbidly fascinating, in the same way as the (UK) sitcom "Mind Your Language", or cable-TV repeats of old gameshows (featuring elderly contestants who must by now be long dead) are fascinating. It shows us the terrifying natural conclusion of British end-of-the-pier culture: a kind of sickness, of identification with rot, with dissolution. It's the kind of film which Osborne-Richardson-Olivier's Archie Rice would have made if he had been asked to make a picture of his dead soul: it's a picture of the soul of a British popular culture that was, the dying appendix of seaside postcards + Rank Charm School shallowness + Ealing cheeriness + Carry On bawdiness: the natural conclusion of leering + emotional constipation + black humour + "Blitz spirit" + more leering is "jokes" about rape.

Or to put it another way, it's a load of rubbish, and unless you want to get a sociological version of The Fear at two in the morning (which is when they tend to show it on British TV's equivalent of the end of the pier, Channel Five) my advice would be to give it a wide berth.