What’s in a film name?
QUESTION Has the title of any film or TV show been changed after a test screening?
IT is not uncommon for films and TV series to be retitled before release as a result of feedback from test screenings or due to legal issues.
The 1989 Timothy Dalton James Bond film Licence To Kill was first called Licence Revoked, but test screenings revealed most Americans didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘revoked’.
In 1982, the Lewis Collins movie Who Dares Wins was retitled The Final Option for the US as Americans were unfamiliar with the British SAS and its motto.
Schloss Adler (Castle Of The Eagles) was changed to a punchier Shakespearean quote, Where Eagles Dare, by producer Elliott Kastner.
The 1990 aviation war film Memphis Belle was renamed Southern Belle for legal reasons, then changed back. The TV series The Professionals was originally called The A Squad.
Bizarre provisional titles for Monty Python’s Flying Circus included Owl Stretching Time and, believe it or not, Gwen Dibley’s Flying Circus.
Dr Colin M. Barron, Dunblane. SOME film titles have been changed because what may be an innocent word in the US could have a lewd meaning elsewhere, and vice versa. The title of Al Jolson’s 1933 musical comedy Hallelujah, I’m A Bum was deemed too much for some overseas audiences and renamed Hallelujah, I’m A Tramp.
Likewise, A Girl, A Guy And A Gob, a 1941 comedy starring George Murphy and Lucille Ball, became The Navy Steps Out, and W C Fields’s 1940 comedy The Bank Dick became The Bank Detective. The 1944 British drama Fanny By Gaslight was renamed Man Of Evil in the US, where fanny refers to the posterior. The title predates changes in what we could consider modern parlance.
Some changes are a lot harder to fathom. Peter Sellers’s The Smallest Show On Earth became Big Time Operators in the US and the 1943 war film Tomorrow We Live was named by film-makers At Dawn We Die in the US.
In 1956, Walk Into Paradise, a perilous trek deep into Papua New Guinea, became Walk Into Hell in the US because it was felt that audiences might not have grasped the satirical title.
Emma Gillingham, Cardiff.
QUESTION How did car registration plates change in 1922 when the Irish Free State was created?
CAR number plates didn’t change when the Irish Free State began. The British system of car registration plates, which started to be used at the end of 1903, continued until 1987, when the first Irish system came into force.
In 1903 cars in Ireland were given number plates for the first time, using the same system that had come into force in Britain. Initially, a two-letter code was issued for all 32 counties in Ireland, as well as for county boroughs (cities), followed by a sequence of numbers, from 1 to 9,999.
The codes ran from IA to IZ and A1 to W1, but Ireland wasn’t allocated the letters G, S and V, as these had been given to Scotland for car number plates there. The first set of codes in Ireland started with A for Antrim and ended with Z for Co. Dublin.
As an example, the new number plates were introduced in Dublin in December 1903; the initial sequence lasted until 1921. That year, the codes were changed for both Belfast and Dublin. Belfast adopted X1, while Dublin took Y1, going on to take Z1 in 1927.
Over the years, especially after the Free State came into being, the number of cars on the roads of Ireland grew steadily, which meant constant changes in the numbering sequences for number plates.
Between the end of 1903 and 1952, when the number plate sequences for Dublin city and Co. Dublin were merged, a total of nine different sequences were used in that part of the country.
In other parts of Ireland, car ownership didn’t develop so fast, so the original number plates sequences lasted a lot longer.
Many other changes were made, as well. In 1969, for instance, motorists were given the option of black on white plates for the front of their cars and black on red for the back of their cars.
It took a long time for the British system of car registration plates to be superseded in Ireland and it didn’t happen until January 1, 1987, when a completely new system, the first Irish one, came into force. County boroughs were given new codes, a single letter, while counties were given two-letter codes. The first two numbers on the new plates indicated the year the car was first registered followed by a random number.
The design of number plates was also changed and, with the new system, white plates with black letters were introduced for the front and back of cars.
But while the Republic brought in this new system of its own devising in 1987, Northern Ireland still clung onto the 1903 system, which it still uses, long after it was phased out both in the Republic and in Britain.
However, the new Irish system introduced in 1987 had a brief lifespan of just four years. In 1991, number plates started to be based on European standard guidelines and this system continues to be used. Car registration plates start with the year the car was first registered, then continue with a code for the city or county where the car was first registered and conclude with a random number sequence. However, the index codes that had been introduced in 1987 lasted until 2013 and, as examples, included LK for Limerick, TN for Tipperary North Riding, TS for Tipperary South Riding and WD for Waterford. Among subsequent changes, Tipperary became a unified county, using the letter T.
Apart from all these changes in number plates, only two pre-1987 codes are still used. The ZZ code was introduced in 1925 for people who live outside the State who keep their vehicle here for up to a month, while ZV can be used as an alternative when registering a vehicle that’s more than 30 years old for the first time.
Dave O’Donovan, by email.
QUESTION
What is the earliest description of a dental procedure? Who was the first professional dentist?
FURTHER to the earlier answers, I was travelling through Pakistan’s Punjab in 1998, when our vehicle was stopped at a level crossing in the centre of a town.
While waiting for a train to pass, I happened to look sideways and see a barber in his open-fronted shop pulling a man’s tooth, as a dentist might do.
I was astonished, and I said to my driver; ‘Look at that barber acting as a dentist’. My driver replied: ‘These small-town barbers extract teeth when their normal business is quiet.’
Tom Baldwin, Midleton, Co. Cork.