The first American film to ever be given an X rating from the MPAA is an oft forgottenRobert De Nirocomedy from 1968.Brian De Palma’sGreetings, the film in question, is undoubtedly the work of young filmmakers. It’s bawdy, irreverent, and structurally rebellious in a way that feels akin to a wad of spit cast into the eye of prudes and authority figures everywhere. The movie happens to be Robert De Niro’s first starring role in a feature film, as well as De Palma’s second work as a feature-film director.
Its X rating is less surprising when considering the attitude that exudes fromGreetingsat every given moment. Like the films from French auteurJean-Luc Godard, who made a career out of making bold, boundary-pushing works,Greetingsbasks in its moments of mockery. Although it’s a minor work for De Niro and De Palma both, it’s fascinating to watch the two cinematic giants in their humble beginnings. Plus,Greetingsdeserves a place in film history for being the first American movie to be slapped with the controversial X rating, paving the way for many more to come. Though X-rated films tended to have far narrower releases than their R-rated counterparts, many were still able to land wide critical acclaim, withthe X-ratedMidnight Cowboyscoring a pivotal Oscar winonly one year afterGreetings' release.
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What Is ‘Greetings’ About?
The vignettes are often prefaced by descriptive title cards that preview what’s about to happen. Paul experiments with “computer dating” (yes,surprisingly that was actually a thing in the ’60s, just in averydifferent way than we know it today), Jon peeps on patrons of a bookstore, and Lloyd takes every chance he can get to rattle off paranoid conspiracy theories.
The Godard comparisons are intentional:Greetingsfeels like a student of the French New Wave, toying with the concepts of structure and narrative while staying hip, stylish, and improvisational. Handheld shots zing about metropolitan streets while actors deliver lines with charming aloofness. The barest bones of a plot focus on the boys avoiding the draft, but the scenes built around that concept often stray. Its episodic structure indulges in an anarchic type of satire that recalls the brilliant films ofRobert Downey Jr.
WatchingGreetingsas a De Palma fan in the modern era, with the decades in between it and now conjuringa list of masterpieces helmed by the director,it’s easy to see much of what would form the style and themes of his later work. There’s a particularly sexual inclusion of the film school essential book,Hitchcock/Truffaut, a hilarious unintentional in-joke that links his ’60s New Wave influence with his decades-long obsession with Hitchcock that took over his ’70s and ’80s. An obsessive photographer repeatedly referencesBlow-Up, the inspiration for De Palma’s ownBlow Out. It’s the little things like these that show De Palma’s appreciation for cinema while foreshadowing the way his inspirations would shape his later work.
Why Was ‘Greetings’ Rated X?
Greetingsearned its X rating because of its frank, free-spirited depiction of sex and nudity. Even if the film might have felt scandalous in 1968 to some audiences, there isn’t much here that feels excessively graphic to the point of deserving that infamous X. There’s a fair amount of nudity, sure — and plenty of sex talk — but there’s really nothing here that would shock today’s audiences. You could throw a dart ata list of modern R-rated comediesand likely find the same type of content.
Robert De Niro reads a dirty monologue from a book about sex, doing so with the perverse fascination of a perpetually horny twenty-something. A woman lays nude in bed while Lloyd tries to recreate the bullet wounds from the JFK assassination on her body with marker. While sitting with his pals, Lloyd gives a spirited monologue about a sexual encounter involving whipped cream.
The most blatant comes from the scene that the movie used for its poster: De Niro’s character, a voyeur and amateur adult filmmaker, convinces his friend Linda (Rutanya Alda) to let him film her undressing for one of his movies. She lays about in bed in her transparent underwear while the camera peeps on. When it’s all said and done, though, the actual nudity is over pretty quickly, hardly warranting a severe X rating. It’s just that frank depictions of nudity were particularly uncommon in American films in the era. European films could get away with it more easily, but pictures like that would rarely see a wide release in the states, while American films were subject to greater scrutiny for its depictions of sex and unclothed bodies.
Greetingsenjoys all of its sex and nudity, but it portrays it in a way that’s all quite silly. It’s all an absurdist flare on typical sex comedy material. Still, it was enough for the MPAA to ban anybody under the age of 17 from seeing the movie.
‘Greetings’ Later Received an R Rating, the First of Many Films To Do So
The controversial X rating —now known as NC-17— is a bit of a death sentence to films hoping for an even somewhat wide release due to an unreasonable stigma held for films that earn the rating. NC-17 films are often seen as too risky a sell, and few theaters are dedicated to actually screening them. As a result, studios and directors alike often appeal for their work to be re-rated as R, and whenthatdoesn’t work, they turn to making cuts to the picture in order to meet MPAA standards and receive the lower rating.Many films have narrowly avoided the X/NC-17 ratingsthrough appeals and edits, andGreetingsalso was able tolater land an R ratingupon its re-release in the ’80s.
It’s hard to find any sturdy consistency with the MPAA’s line between R and NC-17.BrandonCronenberg’s psychedelic horrorInfinity Poolneeded to make cuts to get its R-rating, whileTi West’s snidely-titled horror filmXironically got an R without cuts. Netflix’sBlondereleased to the streaming platformwith an uncut NC-17 rating, a surprising twist considering how widely-accessible the film is to anybody with an internet connection. Few movie theaters would even consider screeningBlondein its uncut form, but Netflix comfortably released the movie to anybody and everybody with access to their platform. It’s ironic and inconsistent, more so in the vein of maintaining outdated (and, arguably, prudish) modes of preventing filmgoers from seeing movies with “explicit” content anywhere but in their homes.
While the future of film content ratings gets increasingly cloudy with the pervasive accessibility of streaming, it’s nonetheless clear that modern content ratings are more lenient than they once were. Compared to something like the R-rated cut ofInfinity Pool —or practically any of those raunchy sex comedies that continue to pop up every year —Greetingsfeels…safe. If outdated in some of its language,Greetingsdoes little to offend. Its nudity and sexuality may have once been novel, but the several decades between its release and now have opened up a much more lenient pool of what can get by in an R-rated film.
For a while, though, what a 28-year-old Brian De Palma — and a 25-year-old Robert De Niro — did felt genuinely rebellious. It was a subversive and defiant romp through ’60s culture, a protest against the Vietnam War, and a rallying cry for the sexual liberation of people everywhere.
