Almost had first modern nude scene

During a scene between Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, Gable walks into the bedroom and kisses Monroe on the neck while she sleeps nude under the covers. He then leaves. In the final edit, she gets up and puts on her blouse while keeping the covers over her body.

However, during filming, she decided to drop the covers exposing her nude body to the crew and the camera, shocking everyone, as she put on the blouse. Director John Huston insisted on a retake; he felt it was totally unnecessary to the scene.

But Monroe kept dropping the sheet each time, and Huston grew frustrated reminding her to keep covered. Gable and others reportedly tried to convince him to keep the nudity to no avail.

The risqué footage was thought to have been destroyed, but according to a Deadline report, the footage was salvaged by producer Frank E. Taylor, whose son Curtice Taylor has kept it in a locked safe since 1999.

Curtice said his father believed that it was so important and ground-breaking that he saved it. Taylor also agreed with Monroe's decision to be nude. He said, "Why would a woman sitting up in bed, with nobody in the room, pull the sheet up, and then try to put a blouse on at the same time? It makes no sense."

If they had kept it in, it would have been the first nude scene by an American actress in a feature film since the Production Code banned nudity and strong sexual content in U.S. films in 1936.

That honor went to Promises... Promises! in 1963 when Jayne Mansfield performed nude in several scenes.