John Jesnor Lindsay
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John Jesnor Lindsay born 1939
John Lindsay was a Scottish photographer who turned to the more lucrative trade of making blue movies (i.e. short hardcore porn films for the 8mm market) during the late 60's and all the way through the 70's. He had numerous confrontations with the law with obscenity charges put against him, most notably October 1974 (jury unable to reach a majority verdict), November 20 1974 (retrial: found not guilty), July 1977 (found not guilty).
Lindsay’s 1974 defense claimed he was shooting pornography for export only, and therefore believed he was acting within the law, however the prosecution’s case suggested a distribution network for his films did exist in the UK. After the not guilty verdict Lindsay began openly selling his 8mm films in the UK, he also discovered a legal loophole in which hardcore films could be screened in British cinemas if they were run on a ‘membership only’ club basis. Membership Only cinemas, which worked on the principle that the premises had to be privately owned and that customers had to sign a form which instantly made them ‘members’, had been using this loophole to show soft core sex films since 1960 when Tony Tenser opened the Compton Cinema Club in London’s Soho. On account of this legal loophole these cinemas were free to show material without it first being passed by the British censor, and would also be immune to prosecution under the obscene publications act. By the early 70’s the staple diet of such cinemas were soft American films albeit often with a violent, S&M bent e.g. Love Camp 7, Mondo Fruedo, The Smut Peddler. Lindsay would be the first to introduce hardcore films to the membership only cinemas, when he opened the Taboo Club in Great Newport Street and the London Blue Movie Centre in Berwick Street. Other rival cinemas followed suit notably the Cineclub 24 in Tottenham Court Road, the aforementioned Compton Cinema, and the Exxon cinema club in North London run by David Waterfield.
During his 1977 trial it emerged that at least eleven of Lindsay’s films had been filmed at Aston Manor, a secondary school in Birmingham, and that “Classroom Lover” starred 19 year old David Freeman, a former head boy and Colin Richards the school caretaker. Upon being found not guilty Lindsay announced his intension to produce Britain’s first feature length hardcore film and fight the British censor to have it released. Although the film never materialized Lindsay was now being dubbed “the blue movie freedom fighter” by the press, an image he indorsed in adverts for his films which claim “I risked my freedom to give YOU the right to buy them’. Several of his post 1977 films also open with a written notice that mention his trials and his not guilty verdicts.
Police interest in Lindsay’s activities intensified towards the end of the seventies, his premises were raided several times and attempts were made to close Lindsay’s cinemas on charges of “running a disorderly house”. To gain evidence of this undercover police officers had become members of Lindsay’s cinema in the hope of catching audience members masturbating. Lindsay alleges that an insider at Scotland Yard informed him that the police had been given orders to close his business down by all means necessary. In 1983 Lindsay’s premises were again raided, and he was sent to trial, this time he was found guilty of obscenity and served 12 months in prison. Lindsay alleges that the four videotapes seized that helped convict him were planted by the police. Upon his release he retired from pornography, and now lives quietly in Kent.
As well as his blue movies Lindsay also produced the feature films, The Love Pill (1971), The Pornbrokers (1973), The Hot Girls (1974) and I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight (1975). At least two of these were also filmed in hardcore versions for export. The Pornbrokers, a documentary style look at Lindsay’s work in pornography, was banned by the British censor, but passed as X by the Greater London Council for a limited release in the capital. The Pornbrokers receives an unlikely plug in the 1974 comedy Vampira (film) in a scene where David Niven’s Dracula and Teresa Graves go and see the film at the Jacey cinema in Trafalgar square[1].
Outside of The Pornbrokers Lindsay speaks about his career in Naughty (1971) directed by Stanley Long, Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions (1980), Sex and Fame: the Mary Millington Story (1996), and The History of Hardcore (2001).
He was also the stills photographer for Derek Ford’s The Wife Swappers (1969), and can (accidentally?) be seen in the film taking stills during the second version of the scene in which a woman in kidnapped on Westminster Bridge.
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[edit] Notable Discoveries
The following began their careers in Lindsay’s blue films, and would later move on to more mainstream 'over the counter' work, usually in the form of roles in British sex comedies or walk ons in sitcoms.
- Mary Millington, appeared in several Lindsay titles most notably the lead role in Miss Bohrloch before becoming the British sex symbol of the 1970s thanks to appearances in magazines like Playbirds and Whitehouse.
- Pat Astley played the maid in Lindsay’s End of Term, then several years later appeared as Young Mr. Grace’s nurse in the 1977 season of Are You Being Served, as well as roles in British sex comedies and the horror cheapie Don’t Open Till Christmas.
- Timothy Blackstone, blue movie leading man in several Lindsay shorts, occasionally had minor roles in soft core feature films and was an extra in the Doctor Who story Genesis of the Daleks. The brother of Baroness Blackstone he was convicted of insider trading in 2003 [2]
- Lisa Taylor, appeared in the infamous Lindsay short Jolly Hockey Sticks, later acted in several British sex comedies (Under the Bed, Let’s Get Laid).
[edit] Partial Filmography
- Miss Bohrloch (1970)
- Betrayed
- Oral Connection (1971)
- Wet Nymph
- Sex Angle
- Sex Ahoy
- Oh Nurse
- Desire
- Health Farm
- Jolly Hockey Sticks
- White Hunter +
- Convent of Sin +
- Triangle of Lust
- Boarding School
- End of Term
- Amanda at Night
- Fruits of Sin
- Hot Sensations
- Kiki and Lil
- Misadventure
- Sexational
- Sex kitten
- Untamed
+ -indicates films cited at Lindsay’s obscenity trials.
[edit] References
- Sheridan, Simon 2007. "Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema" (third edition) Reynolds & Hearn Books
- Lindsay, John 1975. “The Sexorcist”
- McGillivray, David 1992. “Doing Rude Things: The History of the British Sex Film 1957-1981” Sun Tavern Fields Books
- Hamilton, John 2005. “Beasts in the Cellar: the exploitation film career of Tony Tenser” FAB Press
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