By Andrew Adamides
CYBC ANNOYED viewers with a spot of on-the-job censoring on Friday night, when they abruptly stopped showing the film Body Language half way through and replaced it with an old Greek comedy – apparently because the film was too sexy.
The 1995 TV movie began as scheduled at 9pm on CyBC1. Just under an hour later, there was an advertising break, followed by trailers for upcoming programmes. Then the Greek film, an innocuous late sixties comedy, began and Body Language was conveniently forgotten.
Body Language is an erotic potboiler which stars Tom Berenger as a married lawyer who begins an obsessive sexual relationship with stripper Heidi Seinz. But Seinz is married to a crook, and when he finds out that Berenger is her lover, and is defending a man accused of murder, he starts blackmailing him.
The film’s hotter moments include a bedroom scene featuring Berenger and screen wife Nancy Travis, after which Travis cavorts topless in their kitchen. Another steamy sequence occurs when Berenger goes to watch Seinz’ act at a strip club. Coming on in a sailor suit, she does an on-screen striptease and he stuffs money into her underwear. The two then have an abortive romp in Seinz’ dressing room, cut short by the arrival of her husband.
Then they… you get the picture. Or rather, you don’t, because CyBC decides you shouldn’t be watching such smut.
Body Language was originally made for an American cable network, which allows far more explicit scenes than any terrestrial channel.
No-one at CyBC was available for comment yesterday, and it is not known if it received complaints from viewers about the film’s raunchiness.
But Greek press reports yesterday said that members of the public had tried to contact CyBC to complain about Body Language being cut short, but there was no-one at CyBC answering the phones.
One angry viewer told The Sunday Mail yesterday: “I thought I was going mad. I switched channels for a minute, and when I came back to CyBC1, I thought the Greek film was another trailer. But then there were the credits, and it just didn’t stop.”
“You can’t just cut a film with no warning in the middle and pretend nothing has happened. It spoils the night of many thousands of viewers. And if you think a film is fit to be shown after 9pm, then why not have the courage to show it in its entirety?”
The viewer also pointed out that the film “wasn’t actually pornographic” and added that “given the plot, that he’s going out with a stripper, it’s a bit hard not to show anything.”
