One horror movie star confessed she loved filming a “flesh squirming” movie that fans were convinced featured a real sex scene.
That film was 1973’s Don’t Look Now, which followed a married couple grieving for their young daughter. Heading to Venice, the pair encounter two elderly sisters – one of whom brings a dire warning from the beyond.
Starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, the flick featured a romp so realistic fans were sure that the stars were “f***ing on camera”, according to Julie. In fact, it was so realistic that her boyfriend Warren Beatty flew all the way out to London where filming was taking place to demand the scene be cut.
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But the scene was never censored – and was apparently “lovely” to film. Julie admitted during a BB4 show: “I loved the squirming bits and all those things you don’t see. It was just flesh squirming and rolling and touching, and God I thought it was absolutely lovely.”
(Image: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)
She added that the scene managed to capture the moment “you know you don’t exist, the other person perhaps doesn’t even exist. It’s just bodies that are existing. It wasn’t even necessarily sexy, what it was – it reminded you of making love.”
Speculation that the sex was unsimulated swirled for years, with producer Peter Bart writing in his 2011 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***ing on camera.”
However, Sutherland denied rumours that he’d had real sex with Christie. Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond said: “There was already a great deal of trust between Julie and Nic, who’d done four movies together. And the other thing is that in the script the love scene is an integral part of the movie, it’s not just put in gratuitously.
“We did a good job, it’s very real. People still say they actually made love, but they didn’t.” Various co-stars even denied Bart was even in the room while the scene was shot.
That didn’t stop Christie’s then boyfriend Warren Beatty flying out to London to demand the scene be cut, however. Producer Michael Deeley refused, but revealed: “Warren came over to England and knocked on my door one night to say to cut it out of the picture, but there was absolutely no way I could.
“My company had made it and it was the most beautiful lovemaking scene with Donald Sutherland. [It was] beautiful visually and beautiful emotionally because it is in fact about a married couple who have gone through a terrible tragedy and they are trying to get themselves back together so it was a very strong, important part of the picture.”
(Image: StudioCanal)
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He added on BBC’s Desert Island Discs: “There had been a sort of similar fuss with Donald Sutherland on another picture, called Klute, with Jane Fonda.
“There had been talk of them having an affair, which doesn’t mean to say they did at all, any more than there is any truth in the idea that Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie were actually having sex, they were not, they were acting.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
