SEXIS WRONG

Sex by the Numbers
Excerpts from The Book of Sex Lists
Albert B. Gerber
11 Inside Stories About the Making
of the Film Caligula
1. The screen test, Caligula-style: More than 300 women
au ditioned for parts in Caligula by performing in sexual
screen tests so that director Tinto Brass could see: “Not
just whether, but how. Are they good at it? Do they fuck
cheer fully or not?”
2. One extra did indeed have two penises—not all the grotesqueries
were made up.
3. Director Brass had oral sex with a Penthouse Pet on the
set before the entire crew to show an actor how he wanted
it done. His wife described his behavior as “just his usual
extroverted self.”
4. The extra playing a Roman guard who had his penis tied
and was forced to drink wine until bloated, then was
stabbed by Tiberius (Peter O’Toole) in a display of impe rial
cruelty, was actually stabbed by accident and had to be
hospitalized.
“For chrissakes, you want to be
an actress but you can’t even take
a ‘don’t piss’ direction!”
5. Question: How do you prevent an eel from biting a woman
while inside her? Answer: If you were the first assistant of
Caligula and faced that problem for the Harem Monsters
scene, you had the brainstorm of putting a condom over
its head and hold ing it on with Scotch tape. That, unfortunately,
didn’t solve the problem—it killed the eel before it
could per form. If you were the woman matched with the
eel, you used your imagination—and put it in tail-first.
6. The fake cock for the castration scene was made out of
pork sausage.
7. A Penthouse Pet pissing on an actor on camera did it three
times. On the third take, she wasn’t supposed to piss but
she did. Director Brass screamed at her, “For chrissakes,
you want to be an actress but you can’t even take a ‘don’t
piss’ direction!”
8. It is against Italian law to have minors on a movie set where
sexual activity occurs. The filmmakers got around this by
hiring especially young-looking eighteen-year-old women
and shaving their pubic areas.
9. The bed built for Caligula, his wife, his sister, a dozen women
slaves, and his horse was modeled after the main altar
in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
10. Penthouse wanted Caligula to be a softcore, soft-focus
copy of the magazine. Tinto Brass wanted to make a kind
of anarchist “Busby Berkeley Goes to Rome”—a big-budget,
hardcore slapstick comedy. He almost accom plished
his goal. Only after the film was completed did Penthouse
realize what he’d done. It then took three years
and three different film editors to undo the
“damage.”
11. The climactic (pardon the pun) orgy scene
on the ship was a real orgy. It was another
example of director Brass’ ob session with
recreating actual pagan sex. It lasted two
days and included more than 300 people.
(From the book Ultimate Porno by PierNico Solinas. This list was prepared
especially for The Book of Sex Lists by Louis Rossetto.)
340 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG