They did not cast aspersions on the virtuosity of its actors or its sumptuous set design – its production designer, Danilo Donati, was also behind the sets and costumes for Federico Fellini's Satyricon, Roma and Amarcord, but it was slated for its "horrific violence" and its "wall-to-wall sex scenes" as well as what some condemned as inane dialogue.įew could have imagined that Guccione's financial involvement would have affected its outcome quite so dramatically as he had already invested in critically acclaimed films such as Roman Polanski's Chinatown. When it was released, the reviews were devastating. He just signs the cheques!' Well, of course that wasn't true." McDowell said he took the role on the strength of Vidal's original script, saying: "When Gore told me it was Bob Guccione, I asked, 'Isn't he a pornographer?' Gore said, 'Malcolm, just think of him as one of the Warner brothers. Frankly, it showed that Bob had no class whatsoever." That to me was an absolutely outrageous betrayal and quite unprecedented. But there's all the raunchy stuff, the blatant, modern-day porn that Bob introduced into the film after we'd finished shooting. "When it came back uncut, we were stunned." But Sue Clark, of the BBFC, said: "Given that Caligula is a film of historical interest, we felt we could pass it uncut." When Mirren and McDowell finished shooting the film in which they played leading roles, neither imagined it would make its name as one of cinema's great "epic porn films".įour years ago, McDowell expressed his outrage over the editing process and script changes: "I'm proud of the work I did in Caligula, there's no question about that.
Alex Agran, from the film's distributors, Arrow Films, said the reclassification came as a surprise, even to them.
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