Last Tango In Paris - 1973

Growing up, I remember when "Last Tango In Paris" came out and was the first X rated picture our hometown theater showed. Boy what a stink that made. Everyone was upset that The La Parisienin Garden City, MI showed it. From that day on, it was known as "The La Perversion" theater!

"THE THEATER"

The La Parisien was built by Walter Shafer somewhere around 1939 and was opened as the Shafer-Garden City. It was the second theater that the Shafer family owned, the other being the Shafer-Wayne. The Shafer-Garden City was remodeled and renamed a short time after the Quo Vadis opened, sometime around 1966. The La Parisien was the areas first luxary indoor theater with rocking-chair seats. The concept probably was the brainstorm of the Schafer family who owned many theaters in THE METRO DETROIT including the Ford-Wyoming drive in.

"THE MOVIE"

Last Tango in Paris (Italian: Ultimo Tango a Parigi) is a 1973 film directed by italian Bernardo Bertolucci, which tells the story of an American widower who is drawn into a sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman. It stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and Jean-Pierre Léaud. The film was given an X rating by the MPAA upon initial release. After revisions were made to the MPAA ratings code, it was classified as an NC-17, in 1997. MGM released an R-rated cut in 1981.

The main stars should have been Dominique Sanda, who developed the original idea with Bertolucci, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, but Trintignant refused to do it, and, when Brando accepted, Sanda was pregnant and decided not to do it.

The movie was written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli and Agnès Varda (additional dialogue) and was novelized by Robert Alley. It was directed by Bertolucci and cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. Agnès Varda also based the last scenes on the death of Jim Morrison in Paris that occurred the previous year.

The orchestral jazz soundtrack was composed by Gato Barbieri, and arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson.

Spoiler:

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Marlon Brando) and Best Director (Bernardo Bertolucci).

In reference to the anal-sex scene, Ms. Schneider was quoted in the July 23, 2007, issue of the New York Post (which in turn got the quote from London's Daily Mail) as saying: "That scene wasn't in the original script. The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea . . . I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script." As they shot the scene, "I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and, to be honest, I felt a little raped . . . Thankfully, there was just one take." Ms. Schneider was 19 years old when she appeared in the film.

Hmm....I might add this to my list

See if you can get the non-MGM version.

GoGetEmTigers wrote:

See if you can get the non-MGM version.

Let's see what Amazon has (I'm not necessarily buying it, but if the NC-17/X version is the one for sale it'll be the one for download).

EDIT: Amazon says it's Rated X

You dirty minded young man!

Well you don't want the censored / edited version.

What good is free speech if it's censored or edited?