HARDCORE GUARANTEED is the untold story of British Hardcore Pornography.
HARDCORE GUARANTEED is the biographical documentary of Michael J Freeman a pornographer, artist, activist and murderer.The film chronicles a pioneering career from the 1960's - 1990's, highlighting his relatively unknown role in the development of the British porn business.
During the 1960's Michael Freeman started selling his pornographic photographs and 8mm films to the Soho sex shops. His anarchic and entrepreneurial spirit found him unwittingly becoming instrumental in the inception of British hardcore pornography, producing sexually explicit films. This heralded the beginning of a fierce conflict with the corrupt Metropolitan Police and the gangland criminals who controlled the dirty square mile, which resulted in murder.
In 1969 Freeman was convicted of murdering Kray firm associate Gerald Hawley in a frenzied attack. Hawley, described by Richardson gang member ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser as “a real hard man, one of those that can take a car door off with his hands”, was left in Epping Forest with with 89 stab wounds. Freeman received a life sentence for the crime and was released under life license ten years later.
In the 1980s Freeman became the first person in the UK to film, and distribute, hardcore pornography on the video label Videx. He was arrested repeatedly for breaking obscenity laws due, including an 18-month sentence for selling hardcore gay pornography. “I'm not gay but I thought I'd try making gay films. They sold like hot cakes because everyone else was scared to make them” Freeman explained.
HARDCORE GUARANTEED includes Lindsay Honey aka ‘Ben Dover’, who began his career as a model for Freeman.
The film includes unique interviews from Freeman’s associates, academics, journalists and his defence solicitor. This includes infamous British pornographer Lindsay Honey aka ‘Ben Dover’, who began his career as a model for Freeman, and celebrated sexual equality activist, founder of the Sex Maniacs Ball, and the Outsiders charity Dr Tuppy Owens.
The film was first screened in Soho on the 27th March 2019 to critical acclaim. According to the film’s researcher, Dr Oliver Carter, “we wanted to give as truthful account of this untold, clandestine history, drawing on unopened police files and other forgotten archival material”. The film’s director, Simon Fletcher, continued “When I first discovered Mike's story I believed it to be a work of fiction, yet to my astonishment it was actually true. Freeman was a pioneer who blazed a trail that led to some of the modern, liberal freedoms we enjoy now”.
HARDCORE GUARANTEED is out now on Amazon Prime Video.
Watch HARDCORE GUARANTEED in the UK
