Righting Wrongs: Maggie O'Neill 'Friday On My Mind' scene reassigned

A long standing error has been uncovered involving one of Maggie O'Neill's early topless scenes.

In the scene she is in a bath and then gets out to answer a phone in her hallway.  The source of this is widely ascribed to be from the 1992 BBC drama "Friday on My Mind".

However this turns out not to be the case.

My theory is that at some point in the late 1990s or early 2000s someone misidentified, misremembered or even guessed at what some unidentified/unlabelled screen captures/clips came from and this was disseminated as established fact by everyone else who was looking into it later.  And with no ready access to the original programmes there was no particular reason to doubt it - usually things are correct.  I certainly had no reason to question what seemed to be something well established.

However in an ongoing exercise to try and contextually improve descriptions of earlier entries that have been described only from clips, I recently watched Friday On My Mind expecting to see this scene - but it was strangely absent.  I was watching off-air recordings of the original transmissions so it didn't seem likely it had been edited.

Thusly the scene reverted to being a mystery to be solved.  I returned to the (mislabelled) clip I had of it and watched it again for possible clues.  In the scene Maggie O'Neill's character answers her phone which she hurriedly puts down as if was a crank caller.

Checking her credits for other possibilities from the same era I noticed that the 1990 BBC Screen Two drama "He's Asking For Me" concerned her character being bothered by a stalker who keeps calling her.  This had a clear resonance with what occurs in the clip and so seemed worth looking into first before expanding the search if it wasn't.

Fortunately a collector had the episode in question and was able to provide it for viewing - and it turned out to be the one!  Maggie O'Neill's bath scene occurs 30 minutes into it.

It's interesting how a mistake can become so pervasive.  I suppose it has persisted unchallenged because neither programmes have ever been released on DVD.  In fact the errancy is so ingrained that someone on IMDB has even included the keyword "bath" for Friday On My Mind.  And there are no bath scenes in it of any kind.



Additionally there is some further topless nudity from a stripper who does a turn between bouts at a boxing tournament.  She is named "Penelope" by the MC, but has no dialogue and is not credited.




As for Friday on my Mind the only partial nudity seen is a brief moment during a bed scene where she is laying upon Christopher Eccleston's character as they talk.

a scene from Friday on my Mind

More about the programmes

Friday on my Mind is a 3x50-minute BBC1 drama from May 1992 in which Maggie O'Neill plays the wife of an RAF pilot who is killed in a crash on a training flight over Wales while his squadron gears up to take part in the Gulf war.  Traumatised by her loss and emotionally vulnerable she becomes increasingly irrational in her overwhelming grief and starts an affair with one of her husband's pilot colleagues (played by Christopher Eccleston) who has been assigned as her liaison officer to help her through the tragedy.

Maggie O'Neill in Friday on my Mind

An interesting side note: After the end of part 3 there was a bit of after-programme run-on which was retained.  This consisted of a trailer for the drama to be shown the following week which was "Natural Lies" starring Bob Peck.  What is interesting is that back then it seems they were fine about including nudity in the trailers!  Also interesting (which I will have to follow up on) is that the nudity shown in the trailer is not a bit that is seen represented in the generally available clips from Natural Lies.

BBC trailer for Natural Lies

He's Asking For Me is a single-part Screen Two presentation from 1990 lasting 68 minutes.  Maggie O'Neill is a young woman with a tanned complexion who has emigrated from the remote British overseas mid-Atlantic island of St Helena where she has lived all her life up to now.  Coming from a very small close-knit community to the big city of London is a bit of culture shock but fortunately her uncle arranges a place for her to live and some employment with one of his associates.  Her new job is as a secretary in the offices of a starched lawyer called Andy Woodall (played by David Threlfall).  Very soon after settling in she starts receiving obscene phone calls from someone who knows her name but refuses to identify himself.  As the caller becomes more persistent she sets her mind to finding out who he is and engages with him becoming naively reckless as she attempts to arrange a meeting so she can confront him.  Her main suspect is Andy himself whom she quite likes and wouldn't mind greatly if it were him - but could she be wrong?  It was shown on BBC2 on 18/Feb/1990 although the date at the end indicates it was made in 1988.

LeadLog: Mystery Bob Grant clip on BBC Christmas Tape 1978

This is about a mystery clip found on the 1978 BBC Christmas Tape.

Christmas Tapes were unofficial in-house productions made by the BBC's VT department featuring outtakes and out-of-context mickey-taking clips.  Some of them featured new links provided by BBC stars of the day.

Wikipedia has an article about them at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tape

The 1978 BBC Christmas Tape is available in full on archive.org
https://archive.org/details/WhitePowderChristmas
Length: 42m56s / File Size 686MB [704x528]

The 1978 tape was the first one made.  It is named the "White Powder Xmas" and has specially filmed links by newsreader Kenneth Kendall and actor Michael Crawford (in character as Frank Spencer).

At around the 25:15 mark there is a package of short clips which includes one that is a bit of a mystery.

The sequence begins with Kenny Everett in a radio studio, then (after a bit of Esther Rantzen laughing) there is a moment of a topless girl playing badminton, (then a bit from a Spike Milligan show), then a topless girl using a chest expander being watched by a man, then four girls standing around the same man tickling him - unfortunately they are extremely brief moments and do not have original sound on them. 
NOTE: The Spike Milligan snippet is from the prison camp sketch that appeared in Q6, episode 1 (Tx: 06/Nov/1975) of an uncredited (and still unknown) topless girl walking across the shot - although a mystery in its own right as to who she is, it is unrelated to the one under discussion here.

 

 

The man that the four girls are tickling is quite clearly Bob Grant, the actor who is most associated with playing Jack the conductor in the ITV sitcom On The Buses from 1969 to 1973.  He is also the man watching the girl using the chest expander.  He is not seen with the badminton girl, but she and the chest expander girl are two of the four seen tickling him so that links all three clip snippets together as being from the same thing.

However these sequences do not come from anything that is known about.  There are no films of the period that featured Bob Grant in such a scene and he is not credited in any "lost" films that have never been seen.  Similarly for TV shows there is nothing likely on his credits that it could come from.  Clearly it must be something from 1978 or earlier to appear on this particular Christmas tape.  It is perhaps possible it was footage from one of the stage shows he did during the 1970s.  Maybe the BBC filmed some footage for use in a documentary feature although what that might have been for and whether it was ever used on air remains unknown.

An On The Buses fan site lists the theatre productions he appeared in some of which would seem to have had the potential to be saucy.
Extract from http://onthebusesfanclub.com/id14.html
1972 STOP IT NURSE
1975 DARLING MR. LONDON
1975 ONE FOR THE POT (Whitehall farce)
1976 PYJAMA TOPS (New Theatre Hull)

Darling Mr London actually sounds a plausible prospect.   It was a farce co-written by Bob Grant himself along with Anthony Marriot.  It was first performed in March 1975 with David Jason in the lead role of Edward Hawkins. Bob Grant also appeared as Edward's lodger Mark Thomson.

Here is a synopsis from a more recent production of the play:- "Darling Mr London takes place in a time well before mobile phones and automatic international telephone dialling.  Mild mannered Edward works in an international telephone exchange, but isn't shy about chatting up female operators from other countries.  These affairs by proxy blow up in his face when 4 glamorous continental operators travel to London to take part in a Miss Eurphone Contest.  Unaware of each other, they visit Edwards flat, determined to make his acquaintance in the flesh (as it were). Hilarious situations occur as Edward strives to conceal his 'peccadillo's' from his wife, his appalling Mother in law, and his Curate, lodger."

The detail which resonated on the above was the fact that it specifies "four glamorous continental operators" were involved which could tally with the four seen in the clip. 


This is a programme for the 1975 run from scans found online.  If the mystery is from Darling Mr London then it is probably not from this specific production. 
The four female cast are listed (Valerie Leon, Janet Edis, Leena Skoog, Veronica Barbieri), three of whom are known and do not seem to be the actresses seen in the clip.  And certainly none of them are Valerie Leon who is very well known.


So maybe it comes from a different run or something specially staged for the BBC.  Or maybe the appearance of four girls is coincidental and it's from something else entirely.

If anyone knows more let me know and I'll update this entry.


Also of interest on the same 1978 BBC Christmas tape
Another clip of special interest on this particular Christmas tape is an outtake from the three-part BBC2 serial The Girls of Slender Means (Tx: 3-17 May 1975) based on a book by Muriel Spark.  The outtake, which appears at around 26:44, features Mary Tamm fully nude in a dark bedroom walking over to the bed.  Neither she nor the production are identified on the tape, but it is known to be her from this serial and the dressing of the set matches that seen in the broadcast version (in which she only appears topless).   The serial itself has never had any modern repeats or commercial video/DVD releases or turned up in any form although it does still exist in the BBC archives.


Other (non-nudity) outtakes of enduring interest seen on the tape include some from The Two Ronnies, The Goodies, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Blake's 7, and a number from Doctor Who featuring Tom Baker with Lalla Ward and Mary Tamm scattered throughout including a very funny bespoke interchange between Tom Baker, Mary Tamm and K9 which closes out the tape.

Lead Log: Jessica Benton

Lead Log - Introduction

Here is the first of a possible new ongoing feature detailing currently stalled leads ...

The Drama Channel are currently showing the 1970s BBC seafaring drama The Onedin Line (1971-1980).  Out of interest I looked up the credits of one of its stars, Jessica Benton, to see what else she had appeared in.  The Onedin Line was her biggest role in which she played Elizabeth Onedin/Fraser/Fogarty in all 91 episodes.  She also made a number of one-off guest appearance in other TV series during the same decade.

She only appeared in two films.  One of these is an obscure 1974 Dutch film called De 5 van de 4 daagse, also known as De Vijf van de Vierdaagse.  The English title given for it is The Five Are Marching In.  Directed by René van Nie, it is a comedy about four inmates who are temporarily let out of prison to participate in a walking race.  Jessica Benton was playing an art dealer called Marcia Stroud.

The film's IMDB keywords include the vague term "nudity" but I have uncovered no information as to which actor or actress this may be referring.  And so it is not in itself much of a reason to make it seem especially propitious.

So the reason I am flagging this one up as having a higher degree of potential is due to a couple of items found listed on the film's trivia section.

The two pertinent pieces of trivia are:

1.  Josine van Dalsum was contracted to play a part, but dropped out a few weeks before filming began because she objected when a nude scene was added to the script.
2. Pleuni Touw, Leontien Ceulemans and Josine van Dalsum were all approached for the female lead, but all of them refused when the role was significantly reduced. English actress Jessica Benton finally took the part, on the condition that she would receive top billing. When first time director René van Nie did not comply, she tried to postpone the release date until contract was honored, but to no avail.

From these two trivia items one is able to infer that if Jessica Benton took on a role that Josine van Dalsum bailed out of because of a nude scene, then it's possible that Jessica Benton agreed to do it.

Now if those trivia items were clues in a logic puzzle it would be the ineluctable deduction to extract from it, but in reality circumstances might have changed for the actual filming or in the final edit.  It might well be that the reason nothing is known about a Jessica Benton nude/topless scene is because it never happened.  However it seems a suitably obscure film that the possibility of an undiscovered scene cannot be fully discounted without further information.

Has anyone seen this film or have any information that might resolve this?

IMDB Links

Jessica Benton: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072935

De 5 van de 4 daagse: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072367/reference

The film's trivia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072367/trivia

 

On the movie poster her name is listed fairly prominently even if she didn’t receive the top billing she asked for.  The top right image shows what her appearance must have been like in the film.

  

Heads Up: Honest on ITV3

Beginning tomorrow, ITV3 are showing the 6-part drama Honest starring Amanda Redman as the head of a crooked family.  It was originally shown on ITV in 2008.

Episode 1 is on Sunday 8th October 2017 at 10:00pm, and presumably subsequent episodes will be shown weekly in the same timeslot.

There was no nudity in the first episode, but episodes 2 to 5 have topless scenes involving Georgia Mackenzie and Maye Choo.

Georgia Mackenzie

Maye Choo

Here is a description of the scenes as documented on the 2008 Topless Review page:-

Episode 2
Georgia Mackenzie (Catherine Flitt) - topless laying in a bed with her breasts seen above the level of the sheets as she waits for her boyfriend Taylor Carter (Matthew McNulty) who insists on playing out a naughty schoolboy fantasy first. (she is a teacher and he was one of her ex-pupils).

Episode 3
Maye Choo (Vicky Hong) - topless kneeling up on the floor in front of Taylor (Matthew McNulty) (whom she thinks is his twin brother Vin) after she has given him some (out of shot) oral sex while he is standing talking to his brother on a phone.

Episode 4
Georgia Mackenzie (Catherine Flitt) - topless lovemaking scene on a bed underneath Taylor in bed during which he can't stop thinking about Vicky (whose body occasionally substitutes Catherine's to illustrate this) - she is seen fully topless from various angles although the Vicky substitute shots are modestly framed.

Maye Choo (Vicky Hong) - topless making love with Taylor in a swimming pool (he is now actively pretending to be his twin brother Vin).

Episode 5
Maye Choo (Vicky Hong) - topless laying on her back next to Taylor beside an indoor swimming pool as they talk.

Missing But Not Forgotten: London's Burning

The Drama Channel have just started showing the long running ITV drama London's Burning.  It began in 1986 with a 2-hour (100 minute) pilot.  A series followed in 1988 and ran until 2002 clocking up 170 episodes.

The pilot contained a topless scene in which female firefighter Josie Ingham (Katharine Rogers) is sitting in a bath washing her husband Gerry's (Eric Deacon) hair while telling him about her new colleagues at the stationhouse to which she has just transferred.




Katharine Rogers' first appearance

Katherine Rogers was a main cast member for the first two series up to 1989 and then appeared in the first few episodes of series 3 before leaving the watch.  She made a couple of further guest appearances with the final of these being at the end of series 4.

The pilot is also packaged as a two-parter and the bath scene appears in the first part.

The drama channel are showing the episodes at 8am and 3pm each weekday and as seemed inevitable the scene did not survive.  There was a scene at a registry office wedding followed by a scene in a doctor's surgery - in the uncut version it occurs in between those two scenes.

The full version of the pilot is on YouTube split into multiple segments.  The missing scene can be seen in context at two minutes into part 5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xIEtHg_LZk

New Discovery: Zienia Merton in Kosmetikkrevolusjonen (1977)

If you thought that all nudity discoveries of well known TV actresses in pre-video age films must all be known about by now, you'd have been wrong, because new, previously unknown about scenes in a Norwegian film starring British actress Zienia Merton, has just come to light.

Zienia Merton is a familiar face on British TV.  Her most well known role was as regular character Sandra Benes in the science fiction series Space 1999 (1975-77).  Her other credits include a wide range of supporting performances in TV shows from the 1960s up to (currently) 2013.

It is known that she appeared topless in the 6-part 1971 BBC drama serial Casanova before her Space 1999 role came along.  But until now that was thought to be the only one.

Soon after Space 1999 ended she starred in a 1977 Norwegian film called Kosmetikkrevolusjonen (Translation: Cosmetics Revolution).  Top-billed in the film, Zienia Merton plays Lucy Ferner, an ambitious and highly persuasive corporate businesswoman representing a Hong Kong concern that is seeking opportunities in Norway to revolutionise the cosmetics industry with an innovative new secret process they have developed to manufacture cosmetic products from cheap raw materials.  The process is energy intensive so Norway is chosen because of its cheap power costs. She offers the process to a small Norwegian cosmetics company run by Mr Olsen (Carsten Byhring) who jumps at the chance to catapult his company into the big time heedless of how one-sided the financial arrangements seem to be in Ms Ferner's favour.

The top secret computer-controlled "Black Box System" is installed in the company's small factory.  The internal workings of the cabinet-sized Black Box unit are kept closely guarded by Ms Ferner's people but it is able to convert the input of a non-descript waste sludge into a whole range of valuable products such as soaps, deodorants, and skin lotions.  The products in the new range are a commercial success and Ms Ferner is soon making further expansion plans to capitalise on the huge demand.  What is she really up to and will a mounting wave of protests to her polluting factories ruin her plans?


Despite being a Norwegian language film Zienna Merton speaks with her normal English voice and the Norwegian characters she interacts with speak accented English with her (these scenes are subtitled with Norwegian text).  When she is not in a scene the other characters speak Norwegian (with no subtitles).

Zienna Merton has a fully nude scene near the start of the film in which she gets out of a luxury sunken bath and regally stands as her male assistant dries her with a towel, perfumes her, and helps her on with her bathrobe. 

Later on she is nude again in her hotel suite as she uses her allure to seduce a simple farmer to her bed in order to secure his support for her factory expansion plans and take part in an advertising campaign.

In the first scene she has her usual short hair while in the second scene her character is wearing a wig with long hair.

This film was discovered via YouTube and thanks go to the contributor who brought it to my attention.  Running Time 78 mins.  The bath scene is at 6 minutes, and the bedroom scene is at 41 minutes.

Outlander on More4

The US series Outlander is coming to More4 on Freeview.  Made by Starz the show was only previously available to watch in the UK on the internet service Amazon Prime Instant Video. 

Based on the series of books by Diana Gabaldon, Outlander tells the story of English World War II nurse Claire Randall who is accidentally transported back in time to the year 1743 while holidaying in Scotland with her husband.  Trapped in the past she has to make a life for herself amongst the highland clans equipped only with her advanced medical knowledge and forthright manner to gain acceptance amongst the rebellious Scots who have every reason to hate the English.

With a mostly British cast, led by Irish actress Catriona Balfe, Outlander debuted in 2014 with eight episodes ending with a cliffhanger.  A second run of eight episodes continued the following year.  These 16 episodes comprise the first season.  There was a second season of 13 episodes in 2016.  A third season is due this year.

Outlander begins on More4 on Thursday 29th June at 9pm.

The first series has a fair amount of nudity the bulk of which falls to Catriona Balfe.  The scenes for each actress have already been added to the Topless Review database, but here is a handy guide collating those descriptions into episode order. 

WARNING: There may be a few spoilers

Episode 1
Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless and rear nudity standing in a hotel bedroom with her husband Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies) as they kiss and undress each other on their second honeymoon - then topless astride and underneath him on the bed as they make love.

Episode 2
Laura Donnelly (Jenny Fraser) - topless in the street as brutal redcoat Captain Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) roughly tears down the front of her dress and pinions her arms so she cannot conceal herself as he forces her rebellious Scots brother Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) to watch her humiliation to show him the futility of fighting back against the English.

Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless and rear nudity standing as she undresses out of the skimpy modern day evening dress she slept in after spending the night in the Scottish castle Leoch after having been transported back to the 18th century - she hands her clothes to castle cook Mrs Fitzgibbons (Annette Badland) who helps her into clothing more suited to the period.

Episode 3
Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless side view with her right breast seen as she steps out of a parlour bath and Mrs Fitzgibbons helps dry her back as she puts on a shift

Episodes 4 - 6
No nudity

Episode 7
Nina Gilhooly (Isabella) - topless with her right breast seen out of her dress as she and her fellow whores tease embarrassed solicitor Ned Gowan (Bill Paterson) who has been tasked with swiftly obtaining a readymade dress for a wedding.

Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless and rear nudity as she removes her shift in front of her new husband Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) on their wedding night as they gaze upon each other's bodies while getting to know each other properly after their hastily arranged marriage - then topless underneath him on the bed as they make love with passion - then topless as she moves atop him and kisses down his body - then topless laying beside him at contented rest when they have finished - then rear nudity as she gets up and puts a shawl around herself - later sitting with the shawl loosely draped and her left breast seen as Jamie presents her with a family heirloom pearl necklace and puts it around her - then topless astride his lap as they make love this time gently.

Episode 8
Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless laying outdoors in the countryside making out with Jamie as he lowers one side of her dress and kisses her left breast.

Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless with her arms tied behind her as her captor the evil redcoat Captain Jack Randall rips down her top while terrorising her to make her reveal what she knows of the Jacobite rebellion - then topless as he pushes her down onto the table and torments her with a dagger just as her husband Jamie bursts in on a rescue mission (cliff-hanger ending to the first half of series 1)

Episode 9
Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless being held down on a table by brutal redcoat captain Jack Randall in his fortress when her husband Jamie Fraser enters through the window on a rescue mission - then topless as Randall holds her as a shield with a knife to her throat and forces Jamie to surrender his pistol - later topless as Jamie overpowers Randall and frees her.

Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - rear nudity in their bedroom as Jamie lifts her shift and does his perceived marital duty against her will by spanking her to discipline her for her disobedience which resulted in her earlier capture

Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless in the bedroom as she and Jamie breathlessly undress when they patch up their differences - then topless as he kisses her breasts - then topless astride him as they make love on the floor by the fire and she makes him pledge never to raise his hand to her again - then topless beside him as they rest and talk loving words after they have finished - then topless laying on her back as he continues to kiss her body and then as he gets up to fetch food from the kitchen and she finds a ill-wish fetish planted under their bed.

Episode 10
Caitriona Balfe (Claire Randall) - topless laying on her back on a bed in the morning moaning with pleasure as Jamie gives her oral sex (out of shot) when there is an urgent knocking at the door

Lotte Verbeek (Geillis Duncan) - topless kneeling on the ground at night beside a fire in a forest with her ceremonial dress down to her waist as she performs a pagan summoning ritual - then topless laying on her back talking to her friend Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) who arrives to see her - then topless and rear nudity as she stands and changes into her regular apparel.

Episode 11
Lotte Verbeek (Geillis Duncan) - topless as she rips open her bodice in the dock of a courthouse in front of an angry baying crowd at a witchcraft trial as she falsely confesses to being a witch to selflessly save her equally innocent co-accused Claire - then topless as she is carried aloft by the mob out to the stake for her burning.

Episode 12
Laura Donnelly (Jenny Fraser) - brief flashback to her topless scene from episode 2  where she is being held by Jack Randall to torment Jamie.  However this is a slightly new bit not seen in the actual episode it refers to

Episode 13
No nudity

Episode 14
Laura Donnelly (Jenny Fraser) - topless with her left breast seen out of her dress as she relieves herself of excess milk into a cup while standing in a forest talking to Claire (Caitriona Balfe) with whom she is travelling on a rescue mission and consequently away from her newly born baby - then she switches to the other breast and expresses milk from that.

Episodes 15 & 16
No nudity