Director Ken Russell has recently started writing a weekly article for the (London) Times newspaper in which he recalls his life in the movie business. This week the theme was his many battles with the British Board of Film Censors. About ‘Billion Dollar Brain’ he writes:
“With my next movie it was the camera operator who put me in jeopardy. There was a rough-and-tumble between the hero Michael Caine and the beautiful spy Francoise Dorleac. I couldn’t use stunt doubles as a lot of the fight was in close-up. Neither could Caine really lay into his leading lady, so it was the camera that did the roughing up, with the operator hand-holding it at all angles as he followed the sparring couple all over the bedroom. This the censor found too violent by proxy, and the scene was cut heavily.”