Basic Instinct leg crossing scene `gripping piece of hokum` for censors

London: British film censors actually relished some of cinema’s most explicit scenes, archive documents have revealed.

They refused to cut a single frame of the movie, which featured knickerless Sharon Stone un-crossing her legs. Instead it was declared a “must-see” film, the Daily Mail reported. One censor called it a “gripping piece of hokum which bounces the eyeballs from the very start with a scorching sex scene.” Criticism that the 1992 thriller, co-starring Michael Douglas, was pornographic was simply brushed aside. “No the plot doesn’t bear too much analysis – but who cares when one is sitting on the edge of the seat for two hours,” one examiner said. The censors also surprisingly noted “restraint” in the sadomasochistic sex scenes in Last Tango In Paris and were unruffled by Ken Russell’s Women In Love, despite its depiction of nude male wrestling. The 1969 adaptation of D H Lawrence’s novel, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, suffered only minor cuts. But when it was released, one critic called it Women On Heat’. The surprising reactions are detailed in the archive of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which is celebrating its centenary. ANI