Controversy
In the United States, the film was denied a MPAA seal of approval due to a scene between Oliver Reed and Carol White which implied (but did not actually show) oral sex (Winner, in his audio commentary, said he considered the scene to show masturbation. The Catholic League inaccurately described it as "fellatio," even though it is the woman who is receiving.) Universal distributed the film through a subsidiary that was not a member of the MPAA. Along with a similar scene in Charlie Bubbles (1967), this helped to bring about the end of the Production Code in the USA and its replacement with a ratings system.
The film is often named as the first mainstream film to use the word "fuck" in its dialogue. Another contender is Ulysses, which was released earlier the same year. The contention seems to have arisen because of a longtime absence of either film's release date in any easily-obtainable sources, such as the Internet Movie Database. The BBFC certified the film in June 1967 (after demanding the removal, or at least obscuring, of the word "fucking", whereas Ulysses, which suffered heavier cuts, had been certified 3 months earlier in March.
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