David Challinor

On last night’s Channel 5 ‘’x-rated’’ programme… A still very chipper Ken Russell gave an excellently entertaining story from the sixties of how he joined an audience of locals at a Devon cinema to watch his Women in Love (1969). Although it was the swinging sixties, the director found himself amongst a crowd of grannies rather than hippies viewing Ollie Reed and Alan Bates’ notorious nude wrestling scene. ‘They [the grannies] were as quiet as mice all the way through it,’ Russell recalled, ‘until, at the end, both actors are seen lying on the floor covered in sweat…as they lay there I heard one old dear say to another ‘nice carpet’…

sunofyork

David

Nice one. I've also heard Russell relate that the scene became even more notorious in some countries, where the wrestling was completely cut. So you simply saw Bates and Reed stripping off, then cut to them naked, sweaty and exhausted in front of the fire.

What could they have been doing? Ken suggests that 'wrestling' was not the assumption usually made...

SOY