‘Please look after this bear,’ reads the famous label hanging round Paddington’s neck, and this film does that, admirably, handsomely, endearingly, lovingly and not at all sexily. Such a furore, when the film was awarded a PG instead of a U certificate for ‘sexual references’ — oh no! What have they done to the bear? — but it was just the BBFC being somewhat over-enthusiastic, as it would later admit, when it downgraded it to ‘innuendo’.

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