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The depiction of sex and violence in From Russia With Love proved a
huge challenge for EON Productions as they sought to ensure an ‘A’
certificate in Britain for the second Bond film. Drawing on archive
material from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC),
LUKE G.
WILLIAMS takes an in-depth look at the censorship process surrounding the
film and examines how the James Bond films helped push the boundaries of
the ‘permissive society’ that was emerging during the 1960s. |
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One man who watched the progress of the ‘Lady Chatterley trial’ with particular interest was John Trevelyan (1903-1986) – then Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors (as the BBFC was then known) since 1958 and a BBFC ‘examiner’ since 1951. In the wake of the trial, Trevelyan, under whose leadership the BBFC had become gradually more liberal, reflected: “The British Board of Film Censors cannot assume responsibility for the guardianship of public morality. It cannot refuse for exhibition to adults films that show behaviour that contravenes the accepted moral code, and it does not demand that ‘the wicked’ should also be punished. It cannot legitimately refuse to pass films which criticise ‘the Establishment’ and films which express minority opinions.” |
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It was against this more
liberal backdrop that the James Bond films entered into public
consciousness. Given the moral hand-wringing which had greeted the
increasing popularity of Ian Fleming's original Bond novels (most famously
expressed by Paul Johnson in his review of DR. NO, appearing in the New
Statesman on April 5, 1958 under the headline ‘Sex, snobbery and
sadism’), it was inevitable that some measure of moral controversy would
surround the Bond movies, based as they were on the exploits of a central
character conceived by Fleming as a trained killer with a liking for
casual sexual encounters. Producers Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman
were well aware that they would have to carefully gauge and control the
representations of violence and sex in the films if they were to avoid a
dreaded ‘X’ certificate, which would prevent the films from becoming a
mainstream box-office success. To cite a precedent, Michael Powell's
Peeping Tom had, in 1960, received an ‘X’ certificate and been greeted
with widespread criticism and moral revulsion, effectively ending Powell's
hitherto glittering and critically acclaimed career. Such a response to
the first Bond movie, Dr. No, could have wrecked Saltzman &
Broccoli's plans for a lucrative series of 007 films. |
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Whether such humour was a
conscious attempt, from the start, to disarm the censor is unclear, but
Young's tongue-in-cheek approach certainly helped placate Trevelyan. “The
only reason I used to get away with a lot of it was because I always used
to try and make a laugh at the end of a violent scene,” Young later
admitted. “That was one of the traditions I set up … He [the censor]
giggled and laughed and he let us get away with it.” Editor Peter Hunt
recalled a further tactic that was used to sweeten up Trevelyan. “I got to
know him very well,” Hunt confessed. “He was a very reasonable man really… a very nice man. I got to be quite friendly with him. He liked to have a
couple of martinis, [so] the producers used to say to me: ‘Go on, Peter,
you take him out to lunch and [then] show him the picture.’ And I used to
enjoy showing him the picture and having lunch with him, putting a few
martinis in him and making him mellow!” |
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Several other critics
echoed Whitehall's analysis; Penelope Gilliat, in The Observer,
called Bond “a vile man to be given as a hero”, while Thomas Wiseman, in
the Sunday Express, found it “disturbing that we should be offered
as a hero – as someone we are supposed to admire – a man whose methods and
morals are indistinguishable from those of the villains”. Nina Hibbin, in
the communist Daily Worker, advanced a more sophisticated point,
taking issue with the ‘humorous’ approach advocated by Young by arguing
that Dr. No “doesn't wallow, as horror films do, in blood and
torture and slow death. It goes a stage further – by asking you to take
such things for granted, playing for a laugh whenever the sardonic Mr.
Bond makes a new joke”. |
Other sequences examined
in forensic detail by the BBFC were the belly dancing and gypsy girl fight
scenes during reel 5, as Hunt recalled: “We had a great censor problem
with the gypsy fight, with the two girls fighting. It was considered to be
rather amoral … I had to appease the British censors certainly, and I
think various other censors, because they thought it was far too sexy and
amoral, the whole fight. And at one point, I remember the British censor
telling me that he could see the girls’ pubic hairs. I said to him, ‘I've
been watching it frame by frame on the Moviola and I can't! If you like
I'll show it to you on the Moviola frame by frame and if you can see
anything like that anywhere, I'll cut it out right in front of you!’” |
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The love scene between
Bond and Tatiana in an Istanbul hotel room was another scene to be trimmed
to satisfy the BBFC. The shot of Tatiana walking towards the bed nude was
removed. This shot (actually not of Daniela Bianchi herself, but of a
double clad in a body stocking), was later restored to video and DVD editions – the
only original cut to be restored to From Russia With Love in the 49
years since the film's original classification. Also excised were
references in the scene's dialogue [present
in the cutting continuity script] to Bond “searching” her and Tatiana's
line “I hope I came up to expectations”. Additionally, the BBFC insisted
that the shots of Bond and Tatiana kissing should be shortened and that
the shot of cameramen behind the double mirror secretly filming Bond and
Tatiana's love-making should be “shortened and darkened”. |
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One of the more subtle
changes requested by the BBFC occurred during the Orient Express sequence
when Tatiana asks Bond: “Am I as exciting as all those western girls?”
Originally, she asked: “Was I as exciting as all those western girls?” The
change of the verb from the past to present tense served to change the
implication of the line from Tania asking about her sexual technique to a
more general comment about her looks and personality. Another line to hit
the cutting room floor due to its sexual connotation was Connery's comment
“two hours should straighten this out” as he lowered the blind in the
train carriage. |
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The final cuts made to
From Russia With Love are the most noticeable and jarring. Originally,
during the Orient Express sequence, Grant was meant to remark “what a
performance!” when referring to the filmed footage of Bond and Tatiana
having sex in the Istanbul hotel room. However, the BBFC insisted on
removing this line. Similarly, at the end of the film when Bond is in a
gondola with Tatiana he was meant to say to her “He was right, you know. What a performance!” while examining the film reel before disposing of it
overboard. However, the BBFC also insisted on removing Bond's repetition
of Grant's line, leaving the line “He was right, you know” isolated and
making little sense. This cut also created an uncomfortable jump in the
film's soundtrack and visuals that still looks clumsy and unsatisfactory
even to this day, ensuring one of the best Bond films ends on something of
a sour note. |
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Throughout the 1970s, the Bond films were granted
‘A’ certificates,
ensuring that families could attend them as a whole, with only the
occasional minor cut requested by the BBFC to avoid an ‘AA’ certification.
In 1982, the ‘A’ certificate was replaced by ‘PG’ (“some scenes may be
unsuitable for young children”), while ‘AA’ was replaced by ‘15’ (“no
person under the age of 15 to be admitted”). Although the Bond films were
now established in the public's eyes as ‘family entertainment’, in
private, at the BBFC's Soho Square headquarters, several examiners
believed the Bond movies were not ‘A’ or ‘PG’ material and that the BBFC
were wrong to routinely classify them as such. This argument was regularly
re-hashed with the release of each new James Bond movie and the anti-Bond BBFC
contingent termed this perceived leniency towards the series the ‘Bond
allowance’. |
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The first BBFC examiner who viewed the video version of
From Russia With
Love wrote: “Passed ‘A’ in 1963 with some thirteen cuts, this video
tape appears to be the cut version, although most of the cuts – seven of
them were in dialogue – could be reinstated. Although my memory of the
film, particularly of the opening strangling and the fight on the train,
was that it was fairly strong, it now appears to be quite acceptable for
the ‘PG’.”
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This examiner went on to refer to the ‘Bond allowance’ debate within the BBFC, writing: “Whether this violence would be acceptable in another context is one of those imponderables about which we regularly ponder at the Board. In this context, a very famous film shown repeatedly in the early evening (and during bank holiday afternoons by the ITV network in an attempt to get their money back for the Bond series), I would judge this [violence] acceptable. To up the category now would make us look punitive towards video and, in any case, this is a far less sadistic movie than Diamonds Are Forever. It's just a pity we couldn't reinstate the film cuts.” |
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In hindsight, perhaps the most important role the Bond movies played
within the context of screen censorship was establishing a new barometer
of what level of sex and violence was and wasn't acceptable within a
‘family’ movie. Had Saltzman & Broccoli not had an understanding and
liberal advocate for their work in the form of John Trevelyan then the
early Bond movies, and From Russia With Love in particular, might have
been far less violent and sexually adventurous, and possibly far less
successful than they ultimately were. One of the factors that attracted a
younger audience to the early Bond films was that their attitudes to sex
and violence seemed so much more modern than in their stuffy and mild
contemporary competitors. Although the cuts Trevelyan insisted on being
made to From Russia With Love might appear pernickety and inexplicable to
a post-millennial audience, his refusal to bow to the self-appointed
moralists of his day helped the Bond series gain crucial commercial
momentum. As critic Alexander Walker once wrote, Trevelyan “was the super
go-between… generous to the artists and patient with the businessmen”. ©007 MAGAZINE 13/04/2024 |