The “most risqué” line ever spoken in a PG-rated movie, according to Kurt Russell: “It’s so filthy”
One of cinema’s most interesting, or worst, evolutions, depending on who gets asked, is what constitutes a PG movie. In the good old days, films for all the family were much closer to the bone than they are now, with Kurt Russell adamant that one line from a 1980s favourite was the filthiest he’d ever heard.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is probably the best case in point. When it was first released in 1975 and became the highest-grossing movie of all time, it was rated PG. Watching it now, with the amount of blood and severed limbs that populate the story, it’s little wonder an entire generation was scared out of the water.
Fittingly, Russell’s raunchy recollection was also a story that began on the open water. That’s where the similarities end, though, with the actor’s PG-pushing tale of the high seas a frothy and frivolous romantic comedy that reunited him with Goldie Hawn for a production he enjoyed a great deal more than their previous collaboration on Jonathan Demme’s Swing Shift.
It wasn’t a critical darling or a box office hit, but Overboard has its fans, many of whom are willing to die on the hill that it’s one of its generation’s finest rom-coms. Hawn’s venomous socialite falls off a yacht and ends up with amnesia, which her husband uses as the perfect excuse to extricate himself from their marriage.
Russell’s widowed father-of-four, who Hawn’s Joanna Stayton had already thrown off a boat after she savaged his work as a carpenter, smells an opportunity and convinces her that he’s actually her husband. Naturally, his plan to secure her fortune hits a snag when they fall for each other. Sparks fly, chemistry crackles, and on it goes until everyone gets a happy ending.
It’s all pretty formulaic despite its high concept, and as much as Russell enjoyed working with Hawn in what was their last picture together for 40 years until they played Santa Claus and his wife in The Christmas Chronicles, he couldn’t believe one salacious soundbite made it past the ratings board unscathed.
“You know what’s interesting? Overboard has what may be the most risqué line ever in a PG-rated movie,” he told Men’s Health. “Goldie says, “Caviar should be round, and hard, and of adequate size, and should burst in your mouth at precisely the right moment. I mean, Jesus Christ. How overt can you get?”
He’s got a point, but perhaps it’s indicative of his mind being closer to the gutter than the folks who had to pore through every scene to decide on Overboard‘s rating. Then again, it’s hardly subtle and the allusions are on the nose, or in the mouth to be even more accurate, but it was a different time back then.
“And you’ve got Goldie Hawn saying this! It’s so filthy,” Russell exclaimed. “And it goes right over everybody’s head.” Hopefully, it didn’t go over everyone’s head, because the implications are abundantly clear. Then again, maybe it went right over the head of the guy who was supposed to be trawling it for smut, seeing as the movie had no issues being slapped with an all-ages PG.
