David McGillivray (screenwriter)

David McGillivray
Born (1947-09-07) 7 September 1947
London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation Actor, film producer, writer

David McGillivray (born 7 September 1947 in London) is an actor, producer, playwright, screenwriter and film critic.[1]

Originally a critic for Monthly Film Bulletin, McGillivray wrote his first film script, Albert's Follies, for friend Ray Selfe in 1973. Intended as a vehicle for The Goodies, who turned it down, the film was eventually released as White Cargo and starred a young David Jason in one of his earliest leading roles.

McGillivray was soon involved in the British sex film industry, writing scripts for I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight (1975) and The Hot Girls (1974), two films produced by pornographer John Jesnor Lindsay. As would be the case with many of his films, McGillivray makes cameo appearances in both: in I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight he is “Man at Party” who pulls Monika Ringwald’s dress off while in The Hot Girls he was given the job of doing an onscreen interview with Danish actress Helli Louise, who according to the synopsis in Cinema X magazine, talks to him about "working on a movie, and telling a few facts of life about screen nudity and enacting lesbian love scenes."

Horror

He gained attention with his scripts for the horror films of Norman J. Warren and especially Pete Walker. McGillivray wrote two scripts for Warren (Satan's Slave, Terror) and four for Walker (Frightmare, House of Whipcord, House of Mortal Sin, Schizo). McGillivray's background as a critic for Monthly Film Bulletin and Time Out did not exclude his writing efforts from the (sometimes personal sounding) criticism of ex-colleagues. A Films Illustrated review of I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight laments, "It is depressing to see David McGillivray writing scripts like this," while a Time Out review of Satan's Slave opens with: “Another absolute stinker from the withered pen of David McGillivray.”[2]

In 1975 McGillivray was interviewed for an edition of the BBC programme Man Alive, dealing with sexploitation films, along with Walker, Bachoo Sen and Kent Walton. However, he later felt that he and his fellow contributors had presented a distorted view of the business, telling Screen International magazine in the same year "thrilled to bits that our opinions were held to be important enough for transmission we had all -may we be forgiven- said what the nations moral reformers wanted to hear i.e. that the films we made degraded us and that we were thoroughly miserable that the public didn't want to see anything more uplifting. This is not the case. I have never worked with anyone who found it unpleasant or distasteful to do a job which involved standing in close proximity to naked women.”

Books and magazines

With the abolition of the Eady levy tax in the early 1980s spelling the end for low-budget British sex comedies and horror films, McGillivray focused on writing for the stage and providing material for the comedian Julian Clary, both of which he continues to do to this day. In 1992 McGillivray wrote the book Doing Rude Things, which documented the British sex film genre from its nudist camp beginnings to its demise in the video-era. In it McGillivray admits to a fondness for "the second rate and the downright worthless". A television version of Doing Rude Things was produced by the BBC in 1995, in which he was interviewed along with the likes of Donovan Winter, and Pamela Green. McGillivray has subsequently appeared in several similar documentaries. He also edited Scapegoat (1995), a one-shot anti-censorship magazine produced during the second "video nasty" furore of the early 1990s.

In collaboration with Walter Zerlin Jnr, McGillivray has written a number of plays, including The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomens Guild Dramatic Society series of 10 plays spoofing local amateur dramatic productions. They are published by Samuel French Ltd.

Worst Fears

Latterly, McGillivray returned to the horror genre as the producer of Worst Fears, a series of short films by Nathan Schiff and other directors.

Known for his self-deprecating sense of humour, he refers to himself on his website as a "prolific writer, mostly of hack journalism, but also lowbrow films, plays, and radio and television programmes" who "is becoming increasingly unreliable, grouchy and difficult to work with.”

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ "David McGillivray". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ "Satan's Slave (review)". Time Out.

Sources

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