The 25 Jun 1969 Var review noted that Blue Movie was shot in Sep 1968 in New York City. Along with several other contemporary sources, Var identified it as the first theatrically released picture to depict actual sexual intercourse. The film was originally titled Fuck (alternately spelled F,k), but the name was changed prior to release for advertising and publicity purposes, as indicated in an 18 Jun 1969 Var article.
       The first showing took place on 12 Jun 1969 at the Elgin Theatre in New York City, as part of a benefit screening organized by filmmaker Jonas Mekas. The event raised money for Film Culture magazine, Var noted. The 25 Jun 1969 review listed a running time of 140 minutes, and stated that the film consisted of four reels, each thirty-five-minutes long, “including leaders, spliced together.” The 18 Jun 1969 Var indicated that “lovemaking” took up approximately ten minutes of the action.
       Theatrical release occurred at the Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in New York City on 21 Jul 1969. Vincent Canby’s review in the following day’s NYT noted the film had not been rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It listed a running time of 105 minutes, and described the picture as “literally a cool, greenish-blue in color.” Canby suggested a scene toward the end might be an homage to François Truffaut’s 1968 film Baisers volés (a.k.a. Stolen Kisses), and stated that program notes cryptically described Blue Movie as “about the Vietnam war and what we can do about it.”
       On 31 Jul 1969, three employees of the Garrick Theatre were arrested and their print of Blue Movie was seized by New York police, as reported in a 2 Aug 1969 NYT item. Charges of obscenity were brought against the theater staff after Judge Arthur H. Goldberg attended an afternoon showing of the movie on 31 Jul 1969, one day after Assistant District Attorney Richard W. Beckler had viewed it. An 18 Sep 1969 NYT brief later announced that a three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the film was “hard-core pornography and in violation of the Penal Code.” Garrick Theatre manager Saul Heller was given a choice of a thirty-day jail sentence or a $250 fine. Heller’s lawyer, Joel Weinberg, mentioned recent mainstream theatrical releases Alice’s Restaurant and Easy Rider (both 1969, see entries) in his argument against the film’s obscenity, and as evidence of a “dramatic change in social climate in the mass media.”
       NYT critic Canby wrote in a 10 Aug 1969 article that the sex shown in the film appeared to have taken place in real life despite a pronounced lack of passion. Executive producer Paul Morrissey declined to comment on whether or not the sex was simulated or real, and was quoted in a 29 Sep 1969 LAT item as saying, “The whole intent of the film is against titillation. It’s all saying, ‘Here’s sex: it isn’t important.’ Everybody today says that sex is a big thing. Well, here’s Andy [Warhol] saying ‘It’s not. Here it is. I’ll show it to you.’”
       Prior to the obscenity ruling, a Sep 1969 opening on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus had been scheduled to take place, possibly to be followed by a San Francisco, CA, opening at the Presido Theatre, according to the 18 Jun 1969 Var.