On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 10:40:30 -0000 "Julia C. Rice"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There is a British Ealing Comedy called 'Whiskey Galore'. It was released in
> the US in 1948, it's title was changed to 'Tight Little Island' the reason
> for this was to do with prohibition in the US at this time. A film with
> Whiskey in the title was not considered acceptable. The narrative was about
> a group of Islanders in Scotland who confiscated a cargo of Whiskey from a
> ship that was floundering on rocks.

Hi Julia,

Another reason why the title had to be changed was that the original film title
(And that of Compton Mackenzie's novel upon which it was based) had no 'e' in
whisky - i.e. the liquid involved was Scotch whisky, which uses malt as the
base (either one variety, which is known as a single malt, e.g. Glenfiddich
or Talisker, or a blend, e.g. Bells or Teacher's) and is spelt without an 'e',
as opposed to bourbon, which has rye and/or barley as the base, and is spelt
whiskey (the main difference is that bourbon is a lot sweeter).  According to
Charles Barr's book on Ealing, the distributors thought that American audiences
would think that the original title contained a spelling error and thus decided
to change it altogether.

L

P.S. Now that the Euros are going to get rid of duty free, I think it's high
time another boatload of the stuff met a rocky end, preferably on the south
Devon coast...
__________________________________
Leo Enticknap
Postgraduate Common Room
School of English
University of Exeter
Queen's Building, The Queen's Drive
Exeter
Devon EX4 4QH
United Kingdom
email: [log in to unmask]

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