Sexports

Although sex in Hollywood films has lately become more graphic, U.S. audiences may never overtake European tolerance in these matters. Since about half of the average potential gross of a movie now comes from foreign markets, Hollywood has learned to display two faces of Eve, and a little more besides. As a frequent but not general practice, certain scenes in U.S. films are shot twice--vividly for export and vapidly for American distribution. (Sometimes they are merely cut.) Producers and directors prefer to deny the habit. Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association, says that "no one has ever been able to cite a specific film. As far as I know, they go abroad the way they are shown here." Nonetheless, there is such a thing in Hollywood films as sex for export only. Some recent specific examples:

P:Hecht-Hill-Lancaster's Cry Tough, a rough and rumble film about Puerto Ricans in New York, includes a scene in a bedroom occupied by Actor John Saxon and Actress Linda Cristal. In the U.S. she appears in a slip, but the version shot for export confines her wardrobe to one small pair of black panties, and allows the camera to meander athletically where it will. 'Everybody was kind of nervous" about Cry Tough's potential box office, explained one behind-the-scenes executive, so they asked for Actress Cristal's cooperation in order "to get a little more mileage out of it in Europe. On shooting day, I was one of the privileged few to witness the event."

P:In United Artists' Gun Fever, a lissome Indian squaw (Actress Jana Davi) forsakes buckskin for buff skin to scamper winningly up a mossy hillside--but only in happier hunting grounds than the U.S.

P: In Allied Artists' warlike Hell to Eternity, Actress Patricia Owens does a bump-and-grind sequence in bra and panties for alien observation, is seen only from the neck up in the U.S., or. in long shots, wearing a bra and half-slip. Soon after that, for export only. Actor Jeff Hunter reaches skillfully behind her back, at which moment the U.S. version fades out, but in full detail the subsequent unhooking ceremony is seen and heard around the world.

P:20th Century-Fox's film version of William Faulkner's Sanctuary, not yet completed, might have been shot two ways almost from beginning to end. since a literal version of the novel would be impossible on the American screen, particularly the notorious "rape" of Temple Drake by the impotent Popeye. Instead, the moviemakers have opted to masculate Popeye and remove the more unorthodox elements of the rape scene, leaving little to be double-filmed but an active bedroom encounter between Yves Montand and Lee Remick. "The European version I like best," says Montand with a half-bored Gallic shrug, "but I tell you something: both are acceptable and decent. The difference is so small. For America I kiss her lips, but for the Europeans I kiss her collarbone."

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