'Caligula Uncovered' As Censors Relent

A new, longer and explicit 'Imperial Edition' of the cult movie 'Caligula' is about to go on sale in the UK.
After years of low quality scenes circulating on the internet, the 'official' unexpurgated version will feature the added explicit scenes after censors labelled the uncut film as being of "historical interest".
However, it has not made the original film stars happy.
Malcolm 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. But there's all the raunchy stuff, the blatant, modern-day porn introduced into the film after we'd finished shooting.
"That to me was an absolutely outrageous betrayal and quite unprecedented. Frankly, it showed that Bob had no class whatsoever."
It is only now, nearly three decades later that the British censors have capitulated.
Alex Agran, from the film's distributors, Arrow Films, said the reclassification came as a surprise, even to them. "When it came back uncut, we were stunned."
But Sue Clark, of the British Board of Film Classification, said: "Given that Caligula is a film of historical interest, we felt we could pass it uncut."
When UK stars, Helen Mirren and McDowell finished shooting the film in which they played leading roles, neither imagined it would one day make its name as one of cinema's great epic porn films instead and indeed, Mirren, by contrast, remembers the film with fondness.
"It went in where angels fear to tread. In many scenes you're going, 'Oh my god, I can't believe we're actually going to shoot this.' It was sort of horrific, but it was also wonderful," she said.
(BMcC)