10. Ireland Deemed Brief Encounter Too Permissive Of Infidelity
Everyone accepts that Brief Encounter is, yes, one of the most romantic films ever made about extra-marital affairs. But the whole point of the David Lean classic is that it's a romance that can't work that's why there's the classic ending of Celia Johnson's bored housewife tearfully chasing after the train her lover, Trevor Howard, is leaving on. It's not a film that thinks cheating on your husband is a good thing, but neither does it suggest that you should stick in a dead-end marriage, either. It's all about passion, darlings! A favourite topic of writer Noël Coward. When Brief Encounter made it to Ireland on its release in 1945, they found it to have a very definitive message. Irish audiences had to wait a little longer to see the most feted British romance in history because the country's film board deemed the film to be too permissive of adultery, something which obviously never happened in a good Catholic nation (and which the film never, ever addresses and is the reason the couple don't stay together in the end anyway).
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
