Rosanna Arquette nude in The Executioner’s Song (1982)

Your choices to view this 1982 movie are not great. There are, however, many versions lying around.

IMDb says there is a 97 minute cut, aired theatrically in Europe, which has all the nude scenes. I am not familiar with this and have never run into it, but I did find Italian-dubbed versions of the nude scenes almost twenty years ago on Usenet, and made some decent captures from them.

There is a 135-minute “director’s cut,” which includes no nudity and is also missing many non-nude scenes.

There is a 185-minute version on DVD and Blu-Ray which includes all the nude scenes – without the nudity! I’m not joking about that. I have this version on disk. The sex scenes between Rosanna Arquette and Tommy Lee Jones are exactly the same as in the uncensored version, except that Rosanna’s nudity is covered or cropped.

Believe it or not, there is a full, uncensored version available free on YouTube! It includes every scene – and the nude scenes are actually nude! That sounds good on paper, but I’ve only given you the good news. The bad news is that the quality is not much better than the Rob Lowe sex tape.

Anyway, if you are still interested, it is below. The nudity is found at 46:44, 1:00:46, 1:07:02, and 2:07:22. You have to be patient with that last one. I included about a half-minute of pre-nude action so you could understand the context better.

Oz did some nice collages from the latest non-nude version. He had some decent quality to work with.


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And I did my best with the nude scenes from the Italian-dubbed version. As far as I have been able to find, my versions, now some 15 years old, have retained the title of the best nude captures out there. That’s one record I would like to see broken. I’d especially like to see a good version of that scene where Rosanna is on top.


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12 thoughts on “Rosanna Arquette nude in The Executioner’s Song (1982)

    1. That must be the source of the clips I have from Usenet, in that (1) they are 576p, a typical region 2 DVD; (2) they are in 4:3 aspect ratio; (3) they are in Italian.

  1. A version with the nude scenes (presumably the 97-minute cut) was show several times on US cable in the mid 1980s.

    1. I still have not seen any clips or captures better than the ones I posted 15 years ago. If the nude scenes have ever appeared in quality better than the Italian DVD, I am not aware of it.

      1. In the mid-80s the best you could have done would have been VHS captures, which would not have been better than what you have.

        1. Granted – but we don’t know the quality of the master print used by those cable networks in the 80s. If that print was good, and if it still exists somewhere in HBO’s vault, it is possible that it could be streamed today in high def.

          Or not.

          But hope springs eternal.

    2. I was a big fan of Rosanna Arquette growing up and one reason was you could almost always be guaranteed a nude scene in every movie. I definitely remember that this is one of them and was most likely seen on HBO at the time. Especially since at my age at the time I wouldn’t have probably watched a movie like this without the promise of her getting naked (I was a horny kid, what can I say?).

      There seems to be a trend of trying to crop or remove nudity from re-releases of older movies. Some of that may be due to full screen presentations showing more than intended when matted for widescreen but not always. Jackie Brown for example cuts off much of Bridget Fonda’s butt that I clearly remember seeing in the theater so it wasn’t just widescreen cropping.

      1. Oh god, network censorship is the best. I mean it’s the worst, but it’s also hilarious. They blurred out a fully clothed pair of tits – I guess network audiences aren’t ready for bralessness yet. Then another time some frat boys were playing indoor volleyball with an inflatable chick and they BLURRED OUT strategic portions of the sex doll. Not sure who’s the sicko in this scenario.

        1. If you can ever find it, the most bizarre network censorship has got to be the one time, I think it was the Fox Network, aired a network television version of Pulp Fiction.

          The line “Hey n-” was changed to “Hey negro.” Definitely something lost in translation.

          1. According to Reddit AMC airs or aired the network television version of Pulp Fiction. These are a couple of the comments:

            I don’t just mean because of the swearing being censored, I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is removing major parts of the film.

            1.Maybe it’s just AMC, but I’m watching it now, and it’s pretty painfully clear that they 1: edited the gimp scene awkwardly to make sure that you never see the gimp 2: the film goes directly from Marvin being shot in the face to them drinking coffee with Jimmy. No post shot conversation, no explanation as to why they’re with jimmy, nothing.

            Sorry, had to rant!

            2.To paraphrase a quote from Community:

            “Has anyone seen this movie we’re imitating?”

            “Pulp Fiction? Yeah, it’s cute. I saw it on an airplane once. It’s a thirty-minute film about a group of friends who love cheeseburgers, dancing, and the Bible.”

          2. Most famously, John Goodman says in the TV version of The Big Lebowski, “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.”

            The next one is even wilder, “This is what happens when you feed a soldier scrambled eggs.”

            Also in that edit: “I’ll slurp your Coke for a thousand dollars.”

            (I read that the Coens actually wrote all those non-sequitur lines in the dubbed network version, and they are pretty funny. It’s a comedy, after all, and in a way they actually made the film funnier.)

            Other TV classics for F or M-F in various films:

            “Is this a funny joke?

            “Yipee-ki-yay, Mr Falcon

            “Get these monkey-fighting snakes off my Monday to Friday plane!”

            “Say what again, I dare you. I double dare you, my friend.”

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