19. One other Shore (1948)
Anybody wanting a have a look at Dublin within the late Nineteen Forties may like this, however there’s not a lot else particularly compelling about this bizarre Walter Mitty-ish comedy a couple of park idler hoping to finance a one-way journey to the South Seas by serving to wealthy individuals who have fallen over. Impressed by the anywhere-but-here temper of postwar privations, that is fairly charmless, and nearly fully tone-deaf to the category/ethnic sensitivities of a crew of posh Brits rolling across the Irish capital. Not director Charles Crichton’s best hour.
18. Meet Mr Lucifer (1953)
A not particularly refined anti-TV screed, structured like La Ronde with a tv set handed from family to family sowing surprising crises in its wake. Stanley Holloway, by then second to Alec Guinness as Ealing’s star performer, had the showy linking function of music-hall satan, however the entire struggles to transcend its theatrical (and pro-theatre) origins, tailored as it’s from a play by Arnold Ridley (later to attain immortality as Non-public Godfrey in Dad’s Military).
17. His Excellency (1952)
One other play adaptation that doesn’t fairly overcome its stage roots, however it has an attention-grabbing slant on the tail-end of empire. A bluff union man (performed by Eric Portman in skilled Yorkshireman mode) is distributed out by the Labour authorities to supervise a restive Mediterranean colony (a fictional cross between Cyprus and Gibraltar) and tries to get the native folks on facet by supporting a dockworkers strike. However its small-c conservative ending, wherein the Labourite agrees to cooperate with the wily Colonial Workplace chappie already in place, actually doesn’t get to the center of why Britain was divesting itself of its abroad possessions within the first place.
16. Hue & Cry (1947)
Ealing’s first large comedy success has greater than a whiff of the Youngsters’s Movie Basis about it, with its scrappy gang of comic-book studying teenagers unmasking a gang of crooks after enlisting the cooperation of creepy creator Alastair Sim. (Title of their favorite comedian: The Trump.) It’s primarily outstanding now for the proof of the pounding London took throughout the Blitz: town’s warfare wounds had been nonetheless recent and uncooked.
15. A Run for Your Cash (1949)
Ealing favored its crews to get out and about, and this one travels (briefly) to the fictional Welsh village of Hafoduwchbenceubwllymarchogcoch for a cheery comedy about brothers heading to London to gather a £200 prize and tickets for the large rugby match, and stepping into numerous scrapes alongside the way in which. Though it offers within the broadest attainable ethnic stereotypes, it’s solely affectionate and a reasonably amiable watch, in addition to benefiting from Guinness exhibiting up as an ineffectual nature correspondent assigned to escort the brothers round city.
14. The Magnet (1950)
One other tour to the areas, this child-focused comedy which takes place largely in Liverpool’s seaside satellite tv for pc New Brighton, is about an 11-year-old who methods a bit child out of an enormous magnet however then turns into guilt-ridden and removes it, and thereby learns life classes. Together with his drama-school vowels, little one star James Fox doesn’t precisely sound like a neighborhood – in distinction, and to the movie’s credit score, to the gang of slum youngsters who conceal him from the cops at one level – however even in shorts and cap he has a naturalness and display screen presence that marked him out for larger issues.
13. Barnacle Invoice (1957)
A curiously low-energy riff on the Passport to Pimlico concept of outflanking petty guidelines and rules by a declaration of independence, within the final knockings of Ealing’s 50s comedy output. Guinness is a retired naval officer of just about zero profession achievement who buys a pier and claims it’s a ship to evade the native council’s strictures. Though he obtained to seem in his trademark a number of roles, Guinness clearly wasn’t keen on being there (he was doing the movie as a favour to director Charles Frend) however he nonetheless glides by way of it like a Rolls-Royce, albeit one completely in third gear.
12. Who Achieved It? (1956)
Collect spherical, youngsters; there was a time when Benny Hill represented cutting-edge comedy and this debut movie look, along with his marked resemblance to a younger Bob Hope, is Exhibit A. The similarities cease there, although: festooned with sideways caps and soundtrack honks, this has Hill as a ineffective ice-rink sweeper who units up as a non-public detective after getting fired; it’s not fully unamusing even when Hill is a largely bland presence, stuffed right into a regulation capers-and-chase storyline. It’s notably implausible that he ought to encourage the googly-eyed adoration of a glowing Belinda Lee, available as strongwoman act, who has the hots for him.
11. Contact and Go (1955)
There’s fairly a little bit of zip to this comedy of discontent, with Jack Hawkins taking a break from the parade of navy sorts he was well-known for to play a paterfamilias furnishings designer who, pissed off at work, decides on a whim to shift his whole household to Australia. In fact, one factor after one other foils their plans, together with his daughter falling for dashing John Fraser after he helps her retrieve the household’s escaped cat on Albert Bridge. Loses factors for its bellicose enforcement of male entitlement, with a well-acted however near-unwatchable remaining scene wherein Hawkins bellows “I take the selections!” at his hapless spouse, earlier than altering his thoughts.
10. Davy (1958)
Ealing’s remaining roll of the comedy cube till the trendy period was a tonally odd however impressively mounted Harry Secombe automobile which, like Meet Mr Lucifer, operates as a lament for conventional types of leisure. Secombe is the lead member of a household musical corridor troupe who’s tempted by the prospect of a extra profitable solo profession. Secombe, a giant title courtesy of the Goons, is nice as a stage performer, however a lot much less convincing in terms of successfully portraying an precise human being. Not a shock {that a} straight performing profession by no means actually took off.
9. The Love Lottery (1954)
A little bit of an outlier within the Ealing comedy canon, in that it comprises some correct Hollywood star energy. David Niven is on raffish type because the matinee idol who permits his love life to develop into the topic of a fan competitors; it’s a enjoyable begin, however the movie overcomplicates issues with a plot strand involving a playing syndicate (headed by Herbert Lom) that muscular tissues in on the motion. The opening dream sequence, wherein Niven is dismembered and decapitated by a number of Peggy Cumminses, is kind of one thing, and why Cummins by no means turned a much bigger star continues to be a thriller.
8. The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
Ealing at its cosiest, defending branch-line village life from the vandalisation of modernised central planning a decade earlier than the primary Beeching report massacred the railways. John Gregson is the native squire main makes an attempt to maintain a bit steam engine operating after the village’s prepare service is lower, with the wartime spirit of initiative, spit-and-polish, and a little bit of improvisation with the principles. In traditional Ealing fashion, the unions and massive enterprise, supposedly pure enemies, are equally obstructive, however nobody foresaw the business golden egg that restored railways would develop into.
7. The Maggie (1954)
One other hymn to the virtues of the old-school “puffer”, although this time it’s a Clyde cargo boat quite than a steam loco. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick, chief of Ealing’s Scottish division, this has Alex Mackenzie (in his first ever movie function, in his 60s) because the artful skipper who weasels his approach right into a big-money supply job for loudmouth American businessman Paul Douglas, regardless that his boat – the “Maggie” of the title – has been declared unsound. Greater than most Ealing comedies, this manages to seize genuine native flavour, with the actors allowed to make use of their pure accents; and in its confrontation between canny Scots and hapless outsiders, The Maggie is a transparent affect on Native Hero.
6. Passport to Pimlico (1949)
Most Ealing movies crystallise a craving to throw off the sacrifices of the warfare years whereas retaining the house entrance spirit of solidarity, and this one actually hit the nail on the pinnacle. The detonation of a wartime unexploded bomb reveals an underground treasure chamber (though anybody involved with protected dealing with of explosives had higher look away throughout this scene) and the next creation of a Burgundian microstate in the course of London. With rationing now not in pressure, this new Burgundy is briefly a paradise, earlier than being overrun with black marketeers after which blockaded by the British authorities. It doesn’t take all that lengthy for Ealing’s most well-liked small-c conservatism to say itself on this pointed be-careful-what-you-wish-for cautionary story.
5. Whisky Galore! (1949)
One other response to the irritations of rationing, Mackendrick’s directing debut was maybe extra of a shortbread-biscuit-tin of a film than The Maggie, however there’s no doubting its persevering with enchantment to the favored creativeness. Based mostly on a Compton Mackenzie novel, itself primarily based on a real-life incident, this has a whisky-laden cargo boat happening off the fictional island of Todday within the Western Isles, and a portion of its bottles liberated by the islanders. A considerable hit within the US, this implanted the thought of wily Scots quietly operating rings around the overbearing English – a theme that’s by no means stopped being standard.
4. The Man within the White Go well with (1951)
Arguably probably the most progressive Ealing comedy, and one which advantages from Guinness’ straightforwardly charming efficiency. He performs idealistic analysis chemist Sidney Stratton, inventor of a superstrong synthetic fibre, which earns him the enmity of his bosses and fellow staff, who discover frequent trigger after realising an always-perfect material would do them each in. Although by the top Guinness is in his underpants and out of a job (once more), it’s not fairly a return to the established order; Stratton’s ingenuity is undaunted and, calling forth reminiscences of the backroom boffins who gained the warfare only some years earlier, we see inspiration strike once more because the credit roll.
3. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
The heist film was in its infancy within the early Nineteen Fifties and but this brilliantly humorous, nearly excellent, instance arrived even because the subgenre was getting on top of things. It’s led by one other sensible flip from Guinness as a purse-lipped, strait-laced inspector accountable for ferrying bullion to the financial institution who, in actual fact, is plotting to tear the lot off. Guinness is matched toe-to-toe by Stanley Holloway, on nearly Zero Mostel-esque type because the artist whose foundry is vital to the entire scheme. Each element is superbly noticed, and there’s the good thing about distinctive down-the-bill casting: Sid James, Alfie Bass and, in considered one of her first display screen appearances, a radiant Audrey Hepburn.
2. The Ladykillers (1955)
You’ll be able to hardly get a cigarette paper between this and The Lavender Hill Mob; The Ladykillers will get the nod due to the essential wackiness of its setup, grafting an aged boarding-house-lady inventory character (Katie Johnson) on to a properly humorous heist comedy. Guinness is sensible but once more because the crooks’ chief, in a efficiency modelled on Alistair Sim; the remainder of the gang, together with Peter Sellers and Lom, are nice, too. However the remaining part, the place every of the villains get theirs in flip, and candy little Mrs Wilberforce finally ends up with an enormous pile of money, is simply terrific. Director Mackendrick would go on to arguably larger issues with Candy Odor of Success and A Excessive Wind in Jamaica, however that is near-perfect. Its lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance was solely strengthened by the Coen brothers’ dreadful remake.
1. Sort Hearts and Coronets (1949)
There’s no actual contest: that is the Ealing comedy’s masterpiece, and one of many best British movies of any type. Launched in the identical yr as Passport to Pimlico and Whisky Galore!, it was a part of an incredible new wave of comedy, however on the identical time towered over it. It supplied a tour de pressure for Guinness, enjoying all eight members of the noble D’Ascoyne household who’re made to die, in some way, by way of the course of the movie. Amazingly, although, he’s solely the supporting flip: the precise star is Dennis Value, because the draper’s assistant who works his approach by way of the D’Ascoynes to make sure he inherits the dukedom. What stands out now could be the nakedly cynical tone – completely in contrast to the remainder of British cinema, earlier Ealing comedies included – which efficiently obtained its viewers to root for a cold-hearted, nakedly bold serial killer who stored each his trophy spouse (Valerie Hobson) and adolescent crush (Joan Greenwood) in play. It’s additionally a brutal counterpunch to the numerous movies which have idolised the British higher courses; here’s a movie that reveals them exhausted, distracted and completely ineffectual, a message that many within the postwar period had been prepared to listen to.
