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. . . It was "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea", from the book by Yukio Mishima. It broke up KK's marriage to Rita Coolidge, not because of the hot scenes he shared in the film with Sarah Miles, but because of the even hotter sex scenes he had with Sarah Miles in the Playboy pictorial they posed for to promote the movie.
It was the most explicit Playboy ever got in its sex-scenes pictorials, before it backed off left the field to Hustler, Penthouse, et al. In a number of those pictures, it is quite obvious there's sexual contact going on between the two, and though many show-biz wives accept the occasional fooling-around by their spouses, putting in a 5-million circulation national magazine was probably a bit much.
K.K. himself admits that he was drinking, smoking, and snorting pretty continuously at that time, which contributed to his lack of inhibition and judgement.
On Westerns: I grew up with them too, and I have lamented the loss of that form. Why did it do away? For me, the answer is easy. All the filmmakers became obsessed with "realism" and "dirt" and "cruelty", all those terribly unpleasant things to watch. The Westerns everybody grew up on were false, but very positive, entertaining icons. There's very little optimism or entertainment in things like "Dirty Dingus McGee" and "The Ballad of Cattle Annie and Little Britches".
But I admit that some of the gritty "real" westerns were good (Charlton Heston's best performance comes to mine -- the movie's title was the name of the character --- aaaaah! <Brain fart> Can't remember it.
BTW, any male over 12 who doesn't look at Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man" and not fall over in a hormone overdose is not connected to his maleness (okay, shameless generalization from an O'Hara fan, and yes, the film is silly).
One of my favourite Westerns (and I am surprised it has not been mentioned yet) is TRUE GRIT. Yes, it is mawkishly sentimental at times, but the scene with J.W. charging the four bad guys (led by R. Duvall), alternately shooting rifle and pistol is, well, shiver-me-timbers great. And, as is appropriate in a good Western, the scenery and photography were major players).
Thanks for starting a FILM discussion, Wargy.
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