This is an absolutely terrible British stab at the giallo genre, crossed with more traditional "skin flick" elements. Pedestrian, nonsensical, endless, with lots of horseracing footage (if you're an enthusiast). (Barely) escapes a zero-star rating because of some nice stripping / posing scenes, as well as an all-too-brief lesbian interlude.

Well, it's one way to build circulation for your porn mag - make an X-rated thriller about it, as David Sullivan did, even hinting that the pornographer in the story could be trying to keep his own magazine (also conveniently called 'Playbirds') in the public eye by arranging for each centrefold model to be brutally murdered, just as the publication hits the street.

We can't name the killer, of course, but we can tell you that the suspects make a colourful line-up, providing an excuse for some varied location scenes, ranging from Speakers' Corner through Newmarket racecourse to a forest where some rather extreme witchcraft rituals look like getting out of hand...

Funniest is the moment when the baffled detectives think it's time to send in an undercover female cop to charm the publisher into giving her a centrefold, so they have to start by holding auditions at Scotland Yard. Mary Millington carries no conviction whatever as a police officer, but she certainly makes one heck of a stripper, and should have exploited the surprisingly common policewoman fetish with plenty of slow peeling-off of the dark blue livery of the law.

Nobody could watch this film without noting the sad irony that two of the young stars committed suicide soon after: first Millington herself, swamped by drugs and tax-bills, and then the alcoholic Alan Lake, unable to cope with the premature death of his wife Diana Dors. This reflects a haunting theme, the mystic link between mating and death - the porn-stars we're conditioned to envy in their little plastic heaven, with every carnal satisfaction laid-on like a tray of snacks, yet forever tainted by elements of the cynical and the criminal. Reminding us in the end that this branch of entertainment promises everything but delivers nothing.

The Playbirds is not as predictable or monotonous as other low-budget soft-porn features, thanks to a number of mainstream actors like Windsor Davies, Gavin Campbell and Dudley Sutton. There are some good dramatic situations too, but they don't really gel, and the scripting and directing by Willie Roe is disappointing.

I really think this film has really taken a bum rap. It's sad to think, two of the main actors actually committed suicide, one shortly after this. I loved the saucy and cheeky nudity, full frontage, in a film that barely ceased to exist as a Roadshow title. As a thriller it really works. Some nutter is murdering sexy bare bodied girls who feature in the nudie magazine, Playgirl, where each month brings a cover girl victim, so it's not long before authorities figure the pattern, only this psycho is really clever, his method of kill- inflicting strangulation, bringing among suspects, one, a young photographer, with a bit of a dirty S and M record who does nudie sessions with models, one involving a rocking horse, you will never forget. So they send in a undercover cop posing as a budding model, where now things get quite risky. There are some terrifying edge of seat moments, if watching on a first view. I really like how Londoners make these B grades, whether psychological and sexual thrillers, or just saucy sex films, and The Playgirl Murders is quite tightly plotted. How's this? The chief detective who him and his partner work the murders, loves to have a bit of a gamble, where too another suspect, likes betting the horses too. This chief detective who used to play Frank Spencer's warring neighbor in Some Mother's Do Ave Em' would rather do this, than work a murder scene. The undercover cop audition was funny and sexy, and TPM really has it's moments. I really like this film a lot. Pity no one really agrees with me on this one. Jazzy soundtrack.