"But apart from the film’s many qualities (and I have been able to sketch in only a few of them) there was a special air of excitement that night because there was some doubt if anyone who wasn’t there would ever see the film in its original form. Although shot entirely in Paris, it is an Italo-French co-production, and as such, if it is to benefit from all that the Italian system offers in the way of subsidies etc, it cannot be exported before it is passed by the Italian censorship board. An exception was made for the New York film festival, but the print was whisked in and out of the country too fast for there to be more than the one solitary screening – there was not even a press show. At the same time, the producer Alberto Grimaldi, flew in a half dozen Italian journalists; the idea is that the Italian censorship board is very responsive to foreign opinion. It is generally agreed that Pasolini’s Canterbury Tales would never have got past them if it had not first won the Grand Prize in Berlin. ... What they always can do [the producer and director] if the Italian censors don’t pass the film is to surrender the film’s nationality; it may cost them a little, but they would surely make it up on the film’s American release. But where else can it be shown? Germany, Scandinavia – yes. But France or England: I wonder. It is certainly the best possible test for a censor; everyone here agreed the film is not pornographic. On the other hand, it is graphic and explicit. In fact, it poses something of a quandary. But I dare say it will be solved eventually: Last Tango is manifestly too important a film to be put on the shelf. Meanwhile, the fur is going to fly."