An actor enjoyed ‘touching’ her co-star in a horror movie with a sex scene so realistic her boyfriend called for it to be cut.
The film was pretty controversial when it was released back in 1973, as at that time, the big screen wasn’t quite showing that level of action.
Directed by Nicolas Roeg, it followed a married couple grieving the death of their young daughter when a pair of elderly sisters issue a psychic ‘warning from beyond’.
Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland play the couple in Don’t Look Now and it’s rumoured their steamy sex scene was unsimulated.
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Partway through the film, the pair have sex in a sequence cut up with images of them calmly getting ready for dinner.
Christie admitted during a BBC4 show that she ‘loved’ making the film, adding: “It was just flesh squirming and rolling and touching, and God I thought it was absolutely lovely.”
And in 2011, producer Peter Bart wrote in his memoir: “My gaze shifted to the actors, and I was riveted. By their shifting positions, it was clear to me they were no longer simply acting: they were f**king on camera.”
However, this was denied and Sutherland issued a statement that Bart wasn’t even in the room when the scene was filmed.
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Christie also told Film 4 it was ‘pretend sex’ that left the pair feeling ‘dreadfully embarrassed’.
However, her boyfriend at the time was reportedly not happy at all.
Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond, who was in the room for the sex scene, says that Warren Beatty was ‘outraged’ when he saw his girlfriend in the film.
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In the production notes for a special release of Don’t Look Now in 2019, it’s said he apparently told Bart he wanted to ‘cut that scene, pubic hair by pubic’.
And screenwriter Allan Scott even said: “Warren Beatty flew around the world, trying to get the film killed and prevent it from being distributed.”
Turns out though, if Sutherland’s account of the scene is anything to go by, it wasn’t particularly sexy.
The actor spoke to Vulture about the sex scene often referred to as one of the best ‘ever made’.
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He said: “But it’s not a sex scene … You know something, you know how that was shot? It was shot with unblimped Arriflex cameras. We were in a room by ourselves. I don’t know about Julie, but I’m never naked in front of somebody!
“I’m not even naked in front of my children. I’m naked in front of my wife — that’s it. I was shy. For a couple of very specific reasons, she was physically shy.
"But we got over our shyness, went into the room, and were standing like Adam and Eve waiting for somebody to give us an apple.”
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He said the scene was shot in short 15-20 second takes as the cameras would make a noise ‘like a Singer sewing machine on methamphetamines’.
Sutherland added that he was very proud of what Roeg was able to put together.
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film, Sex and Relationships
Jess Battison