Last tango in Cranfield

There was once a cinema in Cranfield in Mill Road, built to entertain servicemen at the RAF base. It's long gone and I'm sure the fare was pretty mainstream. So if it had survived til the 70s Last Tango in Paris may not have got a screening LOL.

It's 40 years since the first UK screening and the range of reactions from the audience are well captured in this Guardian archive article.

Enjoy

"Rubbish" was the word most often used by audiences who saw the first public British showing of "Last Tango in Paris" yesterday. They looked more nonplussed than corrupted as they left the Prince Charles cinema in London, flaunting their furs and velvet collars, not a plastic mac in sight.
Even the ticket touts, who had reckoned that five minutes of diverse sexuality in Bertolucci's 129-minute film should be worth a bob or two, were complaining that business was bad. They were holding out for £2 for £1 seats in the stalls.
Not a soul admitted to being shocked. Certainly not 92-year-old Mrs Emily Tippett, of Midhurst, Sussex, who said as she was being helped up the step to watch her first sex film: "I want to see the muckiest film advertised. What I am interested in is a good bit of fun. You're never too old."
Two hours later her verdict was: "rubbish." She found the swearing and the sex scenes "common."
Mr John Roman-Baker, a 28-year-old writer from Brighton, described the film as a masterpiece, a profoundly religious film more metaphysical than sexual. "The whole point of the film is the search for God," he revealed.
Another writer, middle-aged, velvet-collared, put a contrasting view: "It's a load of degradation, redeemed slightly by the performance of Marlon Brando."
Lord Longford, the campaigner against pornography, was eagerly awaited by a gang of photographers. "Oh, Ron," said a heavily made-up lady. "Don't go in yet – Lord Longford's coming, let's wait and see him." And see him they did, dropped obligingly against a hoarding showing a nude scene from the film as the flash bulbs popped. He explained that he was very concerned about the showing of improper material and felt it his duty to see the film.
Miss Esme Kaufler thought the film was a "load of rubbish." But she went on: "I liked the music and hope it will revive the tango."
There was one "slightly stunned," a middle-aged woman who added that the film was a breakthrough and wouldn't hurt anybody: one "bored," Natalie Kent, a phlegmatic middle-aged actress, who had found herself saying "So what?" during the sex scenes: and one "disgusted," a middle-aged East End company director "ashamed to have gone to see it." He also thought it was rubbish and degrading for an actor of Brando's ability. "Not," he added, "that I was disgusted from any prudish angle."