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Love & Passion Quote by Val Guest

"No, we didn't shoot... in the ones that I did there were hardly any sex... there were suggestions of sex scenes but we never actually shot a sex scene as such"

About this Quote

A defensive little dance around the word "sex" tells you almost everything about the era Val Guest is navigating: an industry where desire sold tickets, but showing it plainly could get your film clipped by censors, scolded by critics, or quietly blacklisted from respectable venues. The quote performs innocence with a wink. Guest isn’t arguing that his films were pure; he’s insisting they were properly impure, calibrated to insinuate without incriminating.

The repetition does the work. "No, we didn’t shoot..". lands like courtroom testimony, then he backpedals into qualifying clauses: "in the ones that I did", "hardly any", "suggestions", "as such". That last phrase is the tell. "As such" is the legalistic escape hatch that lets a filmmaker admit to erotic charge while denying a prosecutable act. It’s less about what was on screen than what could be proven to be on screen.

Guest, a director who worked comfortably in mainstream British production, is also protecting a brand: craftsmanship over sensationalism. He wants credit for knowing the rules and bending them elegantly. This is the aesthetic of the carefully placed neckline, the fade-to-black, the lingering pause that lets the audience do the "shooting" in their own head. The subtext is almost proud: we got the frisson without the fallout.

Read in context, it’s a snapshot of mid-century screen morality as logistics. Sex isn’t a feeling here; it’s a production problem, solved through implication, deniability, and a director’s practiced verbal sidestep.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Guest, Val. (2026, January 17). No, we didn't shoot... in the ones that I did there were hardly any sex... there were suggestions of sex scenes but we never actually shot a sex scene as such. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-we-didnt-shoot-in-the-ones-that-i-did-there-24642/

Chicago Style
Guest, Val. "No, we didn't shoot... in the ones that I did there were hardly any sex... there were suggestions of sex scenes but we never actually shot a sex scene as such." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-we-didnt-shoot-in-the-ones-that-i-did-there-24642/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"No, we didn't shoot... in the ones that I did there were hardly any sex... there were suggestions of sex scenes but we never actually shot a sex scene as such." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/no-we-didnt-shoot-in-the-ones-that-i-did-there-24642/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Val Guest

Val Guest (December 11, 1911 - May 10, 2006) was a Director from United Kingdom.

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