Last Tango in Paris [antikvár]

THEHOntST MCME Dy Charles Michener ong before it had its U.S. premiere in New York, Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris had kicked up more dust than any movie since Howard Hughes's The Outlaw rode into town more than a quarter-century ago and set off a storm of controversy and litigation with its attempt to expose Jane Russell's cleavage. Starring Marlon Brando as a sex-driven, i middle-aged dropout, Tango was already a succes de scandale in France, breaking box office records in Paris, where it opened before Christmas, and provoking a public debate that reduced intellectuals to hysterics. In Italy, authorities confiscated the film, but recently a court in Bologna cleared the movie of charges that it took "persistent delight in arousing base, libidinous instincts." In New York, the distributor. United Artists, carefully decided to open the X-rated fUm at a small East Side theater on a $5-a-head, reserved-seat basis, to be followed by similar "hard ticket"