First Film Rated NC-17 Is Banned Near Boston : Movies: Town officials threaten to revoke theater’s license.

DEDHAM, Mass. —  A movie theater bowed to pressure from town officials and canceled the showing of “Henry and June,” the first film rated NC-17, the designation that replaced the X rating.

Showcase Cinema was to have started screening “Henry and June” today. The film based on the diaries of Anais Nin chronicles her affairs with writer Henry Miller and his wife.

“They can call it whatever they want to call it,” Anthony Taurasi, chairman of the town’s board of selectmen, said Thursday. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it’s a duck. Let’s call it what it is.”

The Motion Picture Assn. of America replaced the X rating with the NC-17 rating on Sept. 26. NC-17 means no one under age 17 can be admitted to the films.

Selectman Frank Geishecker told the Patriot Ledger of Quincy on Wednesday that he would consider revoking the theater’s license if the film was shown.

“We are not censors,” he said. “The censoring is done by the rating bureau. All we care is that we preserve the community standards of the town of Dedham. That is our mission; that is our job.”

Both selectmen admit they have not seen the film released by Universal Pictures. Directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Fred Ward and Uma Thurman, “Henry and June” received the NC-17 rating because of two lesbian sex scenes and a shot of an erotic drawing.

Ira Korf, chief executive of Showcase Cinema’s parent company, National Amusements Inc., said he pulled the film from the Dedham theater because of complaints from the two selectmen.

“I pointed out very strongly this film wasn’t rated X,” said Fred Mound, president of distribution for Universal Pictures. “There was extreme pressure coming down. Obviously, I’m very disturbed by it.”

The MPAA switch was made exactly to avoid these situations, Mound said. The association changed the designation because the X rating carried the stigma of pornography.

Korf said National Amusements had decided to show NC-17-rated films because the new rating means they cannot be confused with hard-core pornography films.

Taurasi said that Showcase Cinema had a gentleman’s agreement with the town not to show X-rated films that the NC-17 rating was “just a way around the ratings bureau.”

Dedham is a middle-class suburb with more than 25,000 residents, about 10 miles south of Boston.