Tropic of Cancer

Three years after cinematizing James Joyce's long-censored Ulysses, Joseph Strick mounted an adaptation of another racy literary work -- Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Rip Torn plays Miller, an American expatriate author living -- and loving -- in 1920s Paris. The much-vaunted sex scenes were hot enough in 1970 to earn the film an X-rating, and an NC-17 when the film was re-rated in 1992. Ellen Burstyn (then billed as Ellen MacRae) has a few effective scenes as Miller's long-suffering wife, Mona; Phil Kaufman later elaborated on her character in the 1990 film Henry & June. Henry Miller himself appears in Tropic of Cancer, billed as a spectator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide