During the filming of the film The Clan of the Sicilians in 1969, Henri Verneuil demanded a very special tool to overcome a scene of eroticism between Irina Demick and Alain Delon, then young actors.
France 3 broadcasts this Monday, January 2 the film The Clan of the Sicilians (1969) by Henri Verneuil with Jean Gabin (Vittorio Monalese), Alain Delon (Roger Sartet), Lino Ventura (Commissioner Le Goff) and Irina Demick (Jeanne Manalese). The film’s music is by Ennio Morricone. The film was also shot in the spring of 1969 between Rome and Paris, via New York.
“Eroticism in cinema is not my forte”
The Clan of the Sicilians is characterized in particular by this adultery committed by the young Jeanne Manalese with the young Roger Sartet. An adultery which generated a scene of eroticism for the director Henri Verneuil. A scene shot at Agay beach in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. “Eroticism in cinema is not my fortedeclared during his lifetime Henri Verneuil to journalist Odile Grand daily Dawn. The heist, the suspense, the surprise, I had polished them off. The scene remained on my conscience (…) One day, it was necessary to get started. In the Saint-Maurice studios, my decorator made me a custom-made one.“
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Henri Verneuil demanded to take a rock to Sicily to camouflage the erotic scene of the Clan of the Sicilians
For Odile Grand, it was a rock “whose crevices hid, at the right time, the heart of the matter during rehearsals”. This rock made it possible to hide details that were too daring in the eyes of Henri Verneuil who was uncomfortable with this erotic scene of the Clan of the Sicilians. An episode for which Henri Verneuil had trouble recovering according to the journalist: “Let’s say that we see a very beautiful naked female body, that Delon is obviously sensitive to it, that he approaches the lady, throws himself on her”, sums it up in Dawn. While this erotic scene was shot again in SicilyHenri Verneuil “had attached itself to its rock that it had to be brought to the spot, testifies Odile Grand. Without his big pebble, he felt lost, in foreign territory, cut off from the world. It was sort of his moral fig leaf.”
