While America revelled in the such uninhibited epics as "Deep Throat" and "The Devil in Miss Jones", back in old Blighty we needed crummy humour to allow the showing of a bit of on-screen slap and tickle. Some may argue that nothing's changed but the men were invariably old, ugly and desperately unfunny. And the females were pasty and only caused sparks because of the amount of rayon and nylon undergarments they sported.

There were a few exceptions though and they pulled in good box office figures and some have gone on to become cult icons. Top of the tree was the tragic Mary Millington. Her coke habit and affairs with Diana Dors and former PM Harold Wilson guaranteed her notoriety. But you could tell instantly the moment she was on screen for she lent an air of class and glamour to even the most banal of films.

She was easily the star of the naff but ridiculously popular sex musical "Come Play With Me" (1977) despite her limited screen time. The absurd antics of two old geezers let loose in a health farm run by the venerable Irene Handl doesn't make for a lot of fun. But the film noticeably changes pace when Millington is on screen. The same can be said for her role in "Playbirds" (1978), a film that regained fame briefly in the 80s when the tabloid press realised that Gavin Campbell from TV show "That's Life" was also in it.

Hardly as alluring as Millington but even more successful was male star Robin Askwith. He came to prominence (so to speak) in "Cool it Carol" (1970). In it he plays a young man who hightails it to London with his impressionable girlfriend only to get caught up in the seedier side of London. One of the film's hilariously cheesy highlights is the train and tunnel sequence.

But real success came to Askwith in 1974 when he made "Confessions of a Window Cleaner". A huge hit at the UK box office it went on to spawn "Confessions of: "A Pop Performer", "A Driving Instructor" and "From A Holiday Camp". Despite the low budgets and seedy plots it was a remarkably successful series. And if you think that people were clearly bonkers in the 70s, then how do you explain the repeats of these films featuring amongst Channel 5's highest ratings these days?