Loving Feeling

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Loving Feeling
Loving Feeling.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Norman J. Warren
Written byRobert Hewison
Bachoo Sen
Norman J. Warren
Produced byBachoo Sen
Starring Georgina Ward
Simon Brent
Paula Patterson
CinematographyPeter Jessop
Edited byTristam Cones
Music by John Scott
Production
company
Piccadilly Pictures
Distributed byRichard Schulman Entertainments
Release dates
  • 26 September 1968 (1968-09-26)(West Germany)
  • 6 March 1969 (1969-03-06)(United Kingdom) [1]
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£30,000 [2]

Loving Feeling is a 1968 British drama [3] or sexploitation [4] film directed by Norman J. Warren and starring Simon Brent, Georgina Ward and Paula Patterson. [5] It was written by Robert Hewison, Bachoo Sen and Warren.

Contents

Plot

Stevee Day, a radio DJ, begins an affair with his secretary, Carol. When his wife Suzanne finds out, she leaves him for their mutual friend Scott. Now separated, the couple start the process of selling their house. Each party longs to get back with the other, but Suzanne is upset by Stevee's immaturity and his refusal to give up Carol. Stevee tires of Carol and embarks on other affairs first with Carol's flatmate, Jane, then with a French model who asked for his autograph. He decides that Jane is only interested in him because of his fame, and ends his relationship with her. Meanwhile, Carol is increasingly focused on her career at the radio station while being romantically pursued by manager Philip.

Suzanne catches Stevee with Carol again and finally realises that their marriage is over. Carol tells Stevee that she and Philip are planning to move to New York. At the empty Day house, Suzanne gives Stevee back her wedding ring, and Stevee hands Scott his house key. Stevee then gets back in his car and drives away, tuning into the radio station as he goes.

Cast

Production

Loving Feeling was filmed between May and June 1968. It was shot mainly at Isleworth Studios with sets designed by art director Hayden Pearce. The production also included location shoots in Margate and London. [1]

The film's UK release was complicated by a dispute between producer Bachoo Sen and the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC). Sen was unhappy with the board's instructions for cuts to various sex scenes to secure an X certificate, preferring the uncut version. In one of his letters to head censor John Trevelyan, he accused the board of acting as "moral preachers trying to remake films [...] in accordance with their likes and dislikes." At one point Sen tried to bypass the board by applying for X certification from the Greater London Council, but it too required cuts. [1]

Sen withheld payments from several of those who were involved in making Her Private Hell and Loving Feeling. This led to a legal case that stripped him of his rights to both films. He later moved to the United States, taking the film negatives with him, which prevented Warren and the other UK stakeholders from receiving any royalty payments. [1]

Reception

The film was commercially successful. [6]

David Wilson of The Monthly Film Bulletin described the film as a "crude miscellany of episodes from the sex life of a singularly unprepossessing disc jock who drifts from bed to bed with a casual indifference to anyone's feelings – loving or otherwise. Execrably scripted and limply acted, the whole tedious business is put across with an air of half-hearted contrivance which the unsynchronised dialogue only compounds." [7]

The New York Times called the film "a curious little sex-go-round package from England that almost achieves merit in spite of itself", adding that it "says a bit, but could have said much more." The review praised the "brisk" direction and "beautiful" cinematography, as well as the performances of Brent, Ward and Patterson. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Locks, Adam; Smith, Adrian (2021). Norman J. Warren: Gentleman of Terror. Creepy*Images. pp. 27–28, 35–37. ISBN   978-3-00-070720-9.
  2. Simon Sheridan, Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, Titan Books, 2011, p. 60.
  3. "Loving Feeling (1969) Norman J. Warren". AllMovie . Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  4. "Loving Feeling (1969)". TCMDb .
  5. "Loving Feeling". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  6. Botting, Josephine (21 February 2014). "Ten Great Films About Sex". bfi.org.uk . Retrieved 8 December 2024.
  7. "Loving Feeling". Monthly Film Bulletin . 38 (444): 52. 1971 via ProQuest.