High life | 2 April 2011

They say that when sexual attraction sets in all other brain functions shut down. It’s nature’s way of ensuring procreation. My brain shut down last week — and for a Hollywood actress, to boot. Of German extraction, Sandra Bullock is not the classic Aryan goddess, but most attractive in the flesh, more so than on the screen.

I ran into her at the birthday party of Michael Mailer, who threw the bash in his father’s old house in Brooklyn, a wonderful location overlooking New York harbour, a place that brought back many memories of wild nights with Norman. Jimmy Toback, the director of Harvey Keitel’s gem of a movie, Fingers — the only American film ever remade as a French movie — and the screenwriter for Bugsy, has directed some of Michael’s films, so we talked about sons and old movies. (Jimmy is an avid Spectator reader and likes it when I make it obvious how much I love my son, as he has an 11-year-old.)

Under the much-maligned studio production code, the elemental power of sexuality was ever-present, for a very simple reason. There was no nudity, only steamy build-ups. Sophisticated innuendo will do more for sex than any full frontal. Now there’s no more mystery, no flirtation, no romance, no sizzle.

Even the female body has changed. I used to die for Ava Gardner’s and Betty Grable’s curves, but today’s lot go for the efficient look, the sterile, athletic one that desexualises. The males are just as bad, especially the young ones. What I’d like to know is whether people in their twenties really are as stupid as the characters in today’s movies? Most definitely, I’d say, especially if they listen to rock music.