How a classy, A-list historical film turned into a $17 million hardcore porno

nypost.com:

recalled asking Gielgud, “How come, Sir John, a knight of the realm is in a porno movie?”The revered actor, who was 72 at the time, replied, “I’ve just come from the set.

Have you seen all that c – – k? I’ve never seen so much c – – k in my life!” The “Arthur” Oscar winner later told McDowell he saw the finished product three times. “Frightfully good,” he said.Mirren, who played Caligula’s frequently naked wife, Caesonia, memorably called the much-mocked movie “an irresistible mix of art and genitals.”“Caligula” was also extraordinarily violent, featuring a surreal decapitation machine — an advancing wall with spinning lawnmower blades.

A man’s guts spill onto the floor after he’s slashed in the stomach, and a maniacal Caligula grotesquely rapes a newlywed couple.

And don’t forget incest, necrophilia and the emperor winding up in bed with his favorite horse.Still, as garish and debauched as it all was, Brass and Guccione butted heads because the American porn peddler felt it wasn’t X-rated enough.So, the Penthouse founder brought in reinforcements.“Another particularly good reason for doing this film was that it gave us as a company a terrific advantage, and that was of using the beautiful girls we portray in the magazine — the Penthouse Pets,” he said in a documentary.To appear in “Caligula,” Guccione flew in 13 models, “two of whom,” he gushed, “were Pets of the Year!” One of the “enhanced” sequences was an orgy scene aboard a multilevel ship in the emperor’s palace called “the imperial brothel,” in which (in the film, anyway) Caligula forces Roman senators’ wives to copulate for money.