The film was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival . It was reportedly jeered at its first screening , but during the second showing , French subtitles in which Molly Bloom described sexual intercourse were seen to have been scrubbed out by a grease pencil , pushing audience sympathies toward Strick who had not been informed of the censorship beforehand . When Strick noticed the deletions during the film 's screening , " he stood up and yelled out that this film had been censored , " Strick 's son David told the '' Los Angeles Times '' . " When I went to the projection room to protest , the committee was waiting for me , " Joseph Strick later recalled . " I was forcibly ejected , pushed down the steps and suffered a broken foot . I withdrew the film from Cannes . " Reviews from some critics were very positive . Bosley Crowther of '' The New York Times '' put the film on his year-end list of the ten best films of 1967 , declaring it " A faithful and brilliant screen translation of Joyce 's classic novel , done with taste , imagination and cinema artistry . " Roger Ebert ranked the film second on his own year-end list ( behind only '' Bonnie and Clyde '' ) , writing that it " went into the minds of recognizable human beings and revealed their thoughts about those things most important to them – expressed in the only words they knew . " Charles Champlin of the '' Los Angeles Times '' wrote that " presuming no familiarity with the novel , the film remains an engrossing experience — very often superbly funny , frequently moving , a confrontation not with three but with more than a score of authentic and credible individuals . " Champlin 's review concluded , " ' Ulysses ' is a remarkable achievement , a further chapter in the maturity of film . " Other reviews were negative . '' The Monthly Film Bulletin '' wrote that " Joseph Strick 's film version is , quite simply , a debasement of the novel . It could not have been otherwise , and Strick must have known this — so why bother in the first place ? ... What one misses particularly is a sense of the author 's presence , without which the book would be nothing — and without which the film is oddly and insistently impersonal . " Pauline Kael described it as " an act of homage in the form of readings ... plus slides . " Stanley Kauffmann called it " a facile and ludicrous reduction . " '' Ulysses '' was originally rated " X " in the UK after extensive cuts were demanded by BBFC censor John Trevelyan . However , director Joseph Strick replaced the offending dialogue with a series of screeches and sounds , thus rendering the scenes unintelligible . Eventually the film was released uncut in 1970 , and the rating was reduced to " 15 " for the video release in 1996
1967 Cannes Film Festival
1967 Cannes Film Festival
Ulysses (1967 film)