“How shocking, how irresponsible”: Michael Caine’s 1987 sex scene that caused uproar in America
While the idea of watching Michael Caine having sex onscreen might be offensive to some, it wasn’t the veteran actor getting it off with a co-star that caused an uproar in America.
It was the way he and his paramour went about it, with their fictional fornication taking place in a movie that was released at a time when societal sexual tensions were high for a number of reasons, and their lackadaisical attitude to combining into the beast with two backs rubbed many folks the wrong way.
In the grand scheme of things, it was a minor furore, albeit one that unfolded in a particularly dire year for Caine’s career. In 1986, he’d enjoyed one of his greatest, starring in five films, which included an Academy Award-winning turn in Hannah and Her Sisters, along with the acclaimed trio of Mona Lisa, Sweet Liberty, and The Whistle Blower.
Unfortunately, 1987 was a disaster. The star famously missed out on collecting his Oscar because he was shooting Jaws: The Revenge, and he was told before The Fourth Protocol had even been released that it would bomb, which is exactly what it did, although he did have strangely high hopes for Surrender.
Reuniting with Sally Field, his co-star from Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, a movie he knew was crap, Caine couldn’t speak highly enough of her. “The great thing was to work with Sally and have a relationship with her, which was so easy, playing off each other,” he shared. “I can only remember having that sort of relationship with one person before, Sean Connery.”
Field may not be everyone’s idea of the second coming of the original 007, but that’s who she was to Caine. In fact, he was so confident in their chemistry that he confidently proclaimed that Surrender “will be the biggest box office hit I have done.” Spoiler alert: it wasn’t, failing to recoup even a third of its budget from cinemas, making it one of his biggest busts instead.
In the picture, Caine’s novelist is on the brink of financial ruin. Thinking women have only loved him for his money, he passes himself off as a destitute failure to see if Field’s artist has eyes for things other than his wealth. She does, and they confirm their mutual attraction by shagging on their first date.
At the time, America was gripped by panic and concern over the AIDS epidemic, and seeing two completely fictional characters going at it without using protection when they barely knew each other caused some backlash. “The reaction was, ‘How shocking, how irresponsible,'” Caine revealed.
“Over there, people are having blood tests before they even consider going on a first date,” he continued. “I’m middle-aged. It’s a problem that hasn’t really affected my generation.” It wasn’t the most reasoned counterargument, giving it the old ‘it wasn’t like that in my day’ spiel, but it was a storm in a teacup at the end of the day, mostly because hardly anyone bothered their arse paying to see Surrender.
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