Trivia

The famous scene where Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde), having been confronted by his wife Laura (Sylvia Syms) about Barrett (Peter McEnery), finally admits to her that he "wanted him," was added at Bogarde's request, and was partially written by him. Bogarde states in his autobiography that he felt the screenplay lacked credibility because it was too ambiguous and did not adequately explain Farr's involvement with Barrett, and skirted around the issue. It's worth noting that Bogarde was gay, and considered this movie an extremely personal project.

Unusually, the many scenes in the pub were all filmed in a real public house, not an interior set on a soundstage. The pub in question was The Salisbury, a famous Victorian gin palace situated on the corner of Cecil Court and St. Martin's Lane, next to the Albery Theatre (where "Oliver" was playing at the time. The posters can be glimpsed in some scenes). This pub was a famous gay pub for decades especially popular with actors, until the brewery installed a new management team in the early 1980s, and it was turned into a tourist pub and ceased to be gay-friendly. However, its original interior features remain, and one can still see the ornate lamps, doors, and mirrors as they appeared in this movie. It was undoubtedly chosen because it would be immediately well-known to gay people who would see this movie and would have been familiar to many of the gay actors who appeared in this movie.

Due to this movie's subject matter, the BBFC studied the script before official submission and several lines of anti-homosexual dialogue were removed. Eventually John Trevelyan agreed to pass the movie after cuts to four lines of dialogue, including Melville Farr's (Dirk Bogarde's) confession to his wife of his homosexual urges ("Because I wanted him. I WANTED him!"). Surprisingly, three of these were rescinded upon appeal, including Farr's legendary admission, and the only cut made to the movie was the removal of a line of dialogue referring to an adolescent boy "making the wrong choice."

Jack Hawkins, James Mason, and Stewart Granger turned down the role of Melville Farr. Then it was decided to make the character younger and Sir Dirk Bogarde accepted the part.

Although, by the time of this movie, the British Police were tending towards leniency in their treatment of homosexual offenders, it would not be until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 (citation 1967 c.60) that homosexuality between consenting males over the age of 21 was decriminalized. Even then, this established an uneven age of consent (16 for heterosexual activity), applied only to England and Wales (Scotland followed in 1980, and Northern Ireland in 1982) and did not apply to the Merchant Navy or the Armed Forces. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 reduced the homosexual age of consent to 18 and the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 further reduced it to sixteen, bringing parity with heterosexual activity.