the wrestling scene (with Alan Bates & Oliver Reed) from Ken Russell’s Women In Love (1969)

The Guardian UK: The controversial nude wrestling scene in the 1969 film Women in Love was passed for release only as the result of a secret pact between the then British Board of Film Censors and director Ken Russell, it has been revealed in archive correspondence released by the BBFC.

More than 40 years after Oliver Reed and Alan Bates writhed naked by the fireplace – the first time that many viewers had seen full frontal nudity in British cinemas – it has emerged that Russell was in cahoots with the chief censor, John Trevelyan, to ensure the scene did not have to be cut. He and producer Larry Kramer offered to take Trevelyan out to lunch and keep him involved at every stage of the creative process: eventually, Kramer offered to dim the lighting during the controversial scene after Trevelyan expressed concern that its homosexual overtones be “handled discreetly” and said he was worried about “clearly visible genitals”.

So pleased were Russell and Kramer at the helpful attitude of the censor that the producer was moved to write a letter expressing their gratitude. “Dear John, can I say how grateful Ken and I are for your understanding help throughout these past months,” he wrote. Trevelyan’s level-headed approach is clear from his own earlier letter, in which he told the film-makers: “We all think it’s a brilliant film and are taking this into account in our judgement of it.”

The exchange has been revealed after thousands of letters between film-makers and censors over the past century were made public for the first time. They offer a fascinating picture of the shifting moral landscape of Britain from the early 1900s to the early 1990s.

March 9, 2013 | Categories: FUCK me RAW, Fuzz-Face FOX, HAIRY ASSHOLES, HAIRY chestidge, HAIRY PIT ACTION, lick & sniff, LOVES, SINema | Leave A Comment »