The only reason for this movie to be R rated is the totally unnecessary swearing of Ned Beatty's character Myerson.
No doubt some silly studio exec thoughtan R rating made it more sophisticated.
How absurd compared to say, "Live Free or Die Hard" which SHOULD have been an R rated movie and cut itself to shreds to be PG-13.
You should get the DVD and listen to the director's interview. Neame explains that Ned is a very religious man, and that he, too, objected to the language, but agreed to it as part of the Myerson character. Especially at the time of this film's release, such language was still very jarring to the general movie-going (or, seafaring, for that matter) world. The DVD offers a "safe" version of the soundtrack as well.
The first major film to use the F-bomb was M*A*S*H*
What I had in mind was boxing the compass.share
I would also submit that back in that period, R-rated movies were all the rage, so to get an "R" rating was actually a good thing, as it would bring in more business than a PG (or GP).
Same is true these days--a "G" rating is the kiss of death, because it's thought people will think it's boring and not go to see it. That's why so many children's movies have a single cuss word in them--to make sure they get a PG rating.
I disagree. The whole point of the swearing is to make the Myerson character out to be a low-class thug. I just watched the streaming version on netflicks where they used the alternate soundtrack and "cleaned up" all the language. You don't have nearly as much contempt for the Myerson character with the cleaning up of his dialog and it takes away from the film. It felt like Mormons came through and "cleaned up" the film and almost ruined my memory of it.
shareInteresting you mention this. I'm watching it now on Netflix streaming and thought it odd that the Beatty character keeps using the word "fricking" when I didn't think that word was used as a substitution for you-know-what back in 1980. I then started watching his lips and noticed that it was dubbed.
I hope this is the only thing that's been changed with this film. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to make it into an R-rated movie to begin with, but I really do hate censorship.
"I just watched the streaming version on netflicks where they used the alternate soundtrack and "cleaned up" all the language. You don't have nearly as much contempt for the Myerson character with the cleaning up of his dialog and it takes away from the film."
*beep* streaming. Just stick with DVD so you don't have to worry about such things.
These days Hopscotch would have received a PG-13 rating, easy.
I remember rewinding when I heard the "F" word from Ned Beatty. I was surprised since no one else had used it.
shareTo "borrow" a thought from another member in a post on this same board: I think all censorship nazis should be shot; but indeed, that would be too good for them.
shareI really don't want to bring up politics into this-but MPAA are a bunch of hypocrites. They rated 'All the president's men" PG-and yet that movie also uses the "F" word. It's not hard to figure out why.
The MPAA can go fly a kite!
Conspiracy therories are cleverly thought out to evade the real truth
Jay
Didn't Glenda Jackson's character refer to him as, "See you next Tuesday Myerson"?
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