Moonraker - Rated R?

JennyFlexFan

I read on Universal Exports that the original ending of Moonraker would have caused the film to be rated R! What was so horrible/gruesome about the original ending that it would acheive such a rating? Does anyone know?

Mr Martini

JennyFlexFan wrote:

I read on Universal Exports that the original ending of Moonraker would have caused the film to be rated R! What was so horrible/gruesome about the original ending that it would acheive such a rating? Does anyone know?

Maybe the blanket was missing?

JennyFlexFan

Oh ok, I thought they were talking about the laser battle sequence, but you're probably right, that they had to shield some *things*.

ATPrescott

Mr Martini wrote:

Maybe the blanket was missing?

Uh, is that a "well-known-fact" 'cause I'm sure it's written or told somewhere if only one would remeber where.

Tobias

Moonraker was one of the least violent bonds apart from the Dufiore Scene with the dogs

Danny-Boy

There was a scene removed - which appeared in a photograph, on a Bubble-Gum card at the time - of Bond and Holly observing people meditating in zero gravity, also they apparently watch one of the perfect-physical-specimen couples making love (this scene would have appeared as Bond and Holly make their way to the Level 10, zero gravity, Orbital Communicator)

My money's on this scene! , it has never turned-up on DVD, as a Deleted Scene

I've seen a trailer, with the R-Rating caption intact

yodboy007

I seem to remember hearing that TSWLM also came close to an 'R' rating because of one line that Bond was to say to Stromberg.

I apologize if it is too vulgar. I believe the line went like this: "Ballseye, fishfinger".

That is vulgar, but nothing by today's standards. It would have been weird hearing Sir Roger's "gentleman" Bond say that line!

Is it true that this line was cut? I read in on some trivia page somewhere.

Hardyboy

I've read about the "Ballseye, Fishfinger" line myself, and I've often wondered if Moore was just joking about it. As for Bond and Holly watching a couple doin' it in zero-gravity, that's in Christopher Wood's novelization of Moonraker, so it may have been in the screenplay or the film itself at some time. Still, I doubt that the scene would have been titillating, given how tame the Bonds were in the '70s. And that's why I highly doubt MR or any other Bond film before LTK would have qualified for an R rating: Cubby was adamant that the Bonds were family movies--no nudity, no gore, no explicit sex. I'm sure he would have made sure that a solid PG film was delivered to the Motion Picture board.

Seahawk

I remember an interview that Emily Bolton gave at the time she was appearing in Tenko , in which she touched on the experience of playing Manuela in MR.
Her strongest memory was of shooting a scene where Manuela is thrown against a wall. As she hit the wall she contorted her face in a manner intended to convey Manuela's pain to the audience.
The call of "cut!" went out immediately, she then received a ferocious dressing down from Cubby Broccoli in front of the entire crew in which Broccoli memorably informed her "NOBODY ever gets hurt in a Bond film!"
If that was Broccoli's attitude to violence at that time, it seems to me that his attitude to sex, nudity & strong language was likely to be similar.
That having been said, prior to his tenure writing Bond screenplays, Christopher Wood was best known for writing witless, unerotic sex comedies & the "Ballseye, fish finger!" line does sound like something he would have used in one of those.