Title of the movie?

Many years ago, I watched a movie but I don't remember the title. The movie was about two Shakespearean actors in the play, "The Taming of the Shrew." At the end of one of the acts, (Act I, possibly?) the male lead was to turn the female lead over his knee and spank her. I don't know if this is a usual occurrence in this play, or the interpretation of the director in this particular production. At any rate. the two actors had argued before going on stage, and the male lead gave the female lead a real bottom scorcher, instead of the stage spanking he was supposed to give her. As best as I can recall, she didn't cry, but did a lot of yelling. During the intermission, there were comments from the audience about how realistic her performance during the spanking scene was. Does anyone else remember this movie and know what the title was?

It might be Kiss me Kate (1968) - the spanking scene is on Youtube, so you can check if it's the one you're remembering.

Unfortunately, Shakespeare didn't include a spanking in 'Taming of the Shrew' although the scenario between Petruchio and Katherina is absolutely ripe for one. I can't remember what precisely, but I'm sure Jillian Keegan had interesting things to say about this play in her excellent book, 'Sex with Shakepeare'.

Allow me a plug: Katherina makes a beautiful, submissive speech towards the end of the play (having been 'tamed') which I put into the mouth of my character Lydia Hartwell in Part 2 of "Adventuress in the Underworld" just before she submits to a public birching in front of dozens of eminent Victorian gentlemen sipping glasses of claret.

I agree with TEM, that has to be Kiss Me Kate starring Howard Keel as Petruchio and Kathryn Grayson as Kate. It is hinted that Petruchio does ‘beat’ Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, but I don’t think it is acted out on stage. Keel’s Petruchio does spank Grayson’s Kate in the musical, and it was also depicted on movie posters advertising the show. I wrote a story based around a high school production of it called Spank Me Kate, if you’d like to read it.

Seegee
Keep in mind, back then women were not allowed to act, and Shakespeare may well have thought the audience of the day would not appreciate a man dressed as a woman being spanked by another man.

Often the ‘women’ were young boys, I don’t think audiences of the day had any issue with that. I did watch an adaptation of Taming of the Shrew starring Richard Burton as Petruchio and Elizabeth Taylor as Kate, I would have loved to see Elizabeth Taylor spanked, but alas that didn’t take place, or if it did it was off screen, which is quite possibly how they did things like that in the Elizabethan days.