The Ealing Comedies
"You Can’t
Eat Scenery"
by Jamie Jobb
When London’s major film production facilities get mentioned the names Pinewood, Elstree and Shepperton Studios dominate the discussion, primarily because they easily accommodate large-budget international productions. And yet, one small studio established in the urban village of Ealing west of London in 1902 continues its long and proud tradition of producing outlandishly outstanding films to this day from that same studio location.
Beginning in 1910 when it produced “Hamlet” for the screen, the cameras haven’t stopped filming at Ealing Studios, the world’s oldest continuously working facility for film production. Michael Balcon took over the studio in 1938 and ran it until 1955, shepherding Ealing’s golden age.
In 2000, a consortium of independent production companies invested twenty million pounds in a wide-ranging redevelopment and upgrade of the facilities while preserving the original sound stages.
Charles Barr’s “Ealing Studios: a Movie Book” captures the essence of The Ealing System: “Ealing was physically small and happy to keep its operations to this scale: it would normally make between four and seven features a year … Insiders and visitors alike remarked upon Ealing’s ‘family’ atmosphere. On the walls was the slogan:
"The Studio With The Team Spirit.”
* * *
Ealing Studios began building its international reputation by producing giddy “Ealing Comedies” that were perfectly suited for their place and time – the war-torn British Isles right after Those Tight Little Islands beat back Hitler in World War II. These rare films now are known as a collective response of the stout British defense against a relentless Nazi blitzkrieg.
Foremost, these comedies were stories of place – with the community itself coalescing as a “character” in the story. Like other European countries after the war, British film crews took their cameras on location to capture the verisimilitude of the day. However, long dialogue scenes still needed studio sound stages. Ealing Studios certainly got a lot out of their small footprint on Ealing Green.
The fabled studio offered filmmakers “job satisfaction and security commonly made up for the modesty of the pay; the symbol of the Ealing system became the Round Table at which, every week, producers, writers and directors consulted freely together. The values acknowledged were those of quality and craftsmanship.”
Ealing Comedies are distinguished by crafty writing with crisp dialogue and tight plots concerning semi-documentary topics, as well as ensemble casts of cracker-jack character actors, particularly veterans Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, George Formby, Gracie Fields and Stanley Halloway who highlighting many of these films.
As George Perry observes in his definitive book, “The Great British Picture Show”: “The Ealing approach to filmmaking placed a considerable emphasis on characterization and the creation of credible characters, a trait that was as marked in the comedies as in the dramatic films.”
During my years on board the University of Florida Cinema Society, we screened “Ladykillers” and “Lavender Hill Mob” on campus as part of our film classics series. That was only a decade after the films were made! And those free screenings were more than a half century ago. I’m amazed at how well these films have withstood time.
Below are my condensed reviews of a dozen of these treasures of world cinema, using quotations and situations from the films to describe them in brief. The first is technically not an “Ealing” production in the strict sense, although the film captures the essence of these unique movies responding in kind to tough times. And it was the film that led me to all the others!
* * *
Local Hero (1983)
“Nobody ever said that it was gonna be easy to be a millionaire.” “We won’t have anywhere to call home. But we’ll be stinkin’ rich!”
Driving paid-off Porsche 930-Turbo and pulling down 80-grand-a-year, “Mac” McIntyre (Peter Riegert) has good life in Houston as Knox Oil and Gas “telex-man”. Because his name is most Scottish-sounding in home office, Mac gets overseas assignment as on-site negotiator for leveraged buy-out of idyllic North East Highland village of Furness for seaside refinery.
Star-struck Knox CEO Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) instructs Mac to keep his eye on the night sky: “I want reports. Anything unusual in Virgo. You’ll know when you see it.” Most obviously unusual to report: Everyone here occupies more than one job.
Innkeeper, chartered accountant and town negotiator Gordon Urquhart (Denis Lawson) is also “licensed to deal in game” while his innkeeper-cook-wife Stella (Jennifer Black) seems insatiably suited for Gordon’s fun and games.
Forsythe spins Furness into character itself as Mac comes to comprehend hamlet he plans to destroy. “He’s got a bag full of money” but who’s really rich here? Our Yank ponders such after he meets lovable Russian fisherman Victor-from-Murmansk (Christopher Rozycky) who frequents Furness to manage his investments. “You know I’m a cash-man, Gordon!”
While Hebrides sunsets lure mermaid Marina (Jenny Seagrove) and language-master Donny Olson (Peter Capaldi) out to sea, peculiar beach-bum Old Ben Knox (brilliant Fulton Mackay) combs handsful of sand to find beach full of living. “If he offers you anything to do with sand, say ‘Yes!’ and we’ll get him to sign something right away.”
Glorious theme-and-variations score by Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) helps Forsythe find resonance in James Steward imitation, “extra-normal shampoo”, electric briefcase adapter, “Whose baby?” and “Even the Lone Star State Gets Lonesome.”
Locals know “news does tend to travel fast round here” and of course “you can talk to anybody in the world” from lone red phone-box on wharf. Surprise curveball ending turns very sly cliff-hanger into subtle masterpiece spawned by Ealing comedies of community. Written and directed by Bill Forsythe.
“It’s their place, Mac. They have a right to make what they can of it. You can’t eat scenery.” (Scotland).
* * *
The Ladykillers (1955)
“It’s true, I carried the loure (loot), but I wasn’t really one of the gang … and I did not plan, or have anything to do with the East Castle Street job. I don’t even know where East Castle Street is!”
In shadow of King’s Cross, lurks improbable string quintet – “Major” Claude Courtney (Cecil Parker), slick Harry Robinson (Peter Sellers), “One-Round” Lawson (Danny Green), nervous Louie Harvey (Herbert Lom) and “Professor” Doc Marcus (Alec Guinness). “It’s too late now, One-Round, to have a mind to change.”
These five high-strung men “serenade” widowed landlord Louisa Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), aka “Mrs. Lopsided”, but one-by-one they’re forced to understand: ‘Twas indeed the perfect crime! “I assure you if we tried to take the money back now, it would simply confuse the whole issue.”
And never mind “the rubber hoses. The rest of her life sewing mail bags. And no one to look after the parrots.” Most certainly one should not mention any forgotten umbrella, stuffed phone booth, horse named Dennis, “the subsidence” or pounded pipes for tea. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Written by William Rose.
“If they take her down to the Gallery, she’ll shop us. They’ve got our fingers and thumbs!” Perfect double-feature mate for “Arsenic and Old Lace”. “All good plans include the human element. But then, I admit, you were right. No really good plan could include Mrs. Wilberforce. (British)
* * *
High and Dry, aka The Maggie (1954)
“Tell me MacTaggart, are you out of your mind, or is it just you think you’ve driven me out of mine?” American businessman Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Douglas) travels to Scotland to assure his precious cargo of home furnishings reach its destination, the fictional island of Kiltarra where he’s remodeling a house as a birthday present for his wife. “… mainly plumbing and heating apparatus, some timber, a deep freeze, a variety of materials – all extremely valuable.” And, yes: “Four baths! All on one island.”
Erasable Captain MacTaggart (Alex Mackenzie), skipper of a croaking coastal “puffer” The Maggie, is“a crafty-looking buzzard, all right!” And as for his steamship, he stands alone in his opinion: “There’s not a finer vessel in the coastal trade! There’s not a finer vessel anywhere!”
MacGregor, the Mate (James Copeland) might beg to disagree, but probably not Mr. Pusey (Herbert Gregg) who makes the grave mistake of hiring MacTaggart. “I don’t think a man need be very quick to leave Mr. Pusey behind.” Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Written by Mackendrick and William Rose.
“You’re very smug with your gold braid and your conventions and your five-days-a-week, but you’re no better than hirelings standing like wee bairns in front of Mr. Campbell’s big desk down yonder. You haven’t the freedom of operations that I have. You haven’t the dignity of your own command.” (British)
* * *
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
“It’s a judgment on me. I’ve failed my duty.” “Oh rot Sam, you couldn’t be expected to sleep with her.” “No, no. In the spiritual sense. To think that such a crime could be committed in my parish!”
Rural, post-war England’s Titfield-Mallingford Railway – “the oldest surviving branch line in the world” – now faces closure and replacement by “alternative passenger omnibus service” run by Alec Pearce (Ewan Roberts) and Vernon Crump (Jack McGowan). “Five years from now, they’ll be callin’ this place Pearcetown.”
But Pearce and Crump, Ltd. did not count on bucolic spunk of Gordon “Squire” Chesterford (John Gregson) railway-buff vicar Sam Weech (George Relph) and wealthy eccentric drunk Valentine (Stanley Holloway). “Money is only a symbol.”
Inspired by a true story, the restoration of the Talyllyn Railway narrow gauge in Wales, the world’s first heritage railway run by volunteers. Set in Titsey and Limpsfield, two Surrey Villages that make an amalgamation “Titfield”.
It seems Titfield will stop at nothing – including museum theft – to keep its steam engine running late and on time. “British Railways run by grace, not by Titfield time!” Later-day Ealing comedy has its moments, but lacks certain crackle despite “petticoat pipe”, steam-roller jousting, “amateuritis” and “firebox throat-plate”. Directed by Charles Crichton. Written by T.E.B. Clarke.
“A man should never be left to mourn alone.” (British).
* * *
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
“Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.” For twenty years, Henry “Dutch” Holland (Alec Guinness) is “a man of millions” who labors as trusty gold-bullion escort from refinery to bank vault. “His one and only virtue is honesty. He has no imagination, no initiative.”
At night he reads Yank detective yarns to widowed roommates at Lavender Hill’s Balmoral Private Hotel. “I was a potential millionaire, yet I had to be satisfied with eight pounds, fifteen shillings, less deductions.”
Then one day Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) – a paperweight designer who likes to“propagate British cultural depravity” – moves in and accepts Holland’s “gilt-edged proposition”. With a Paris holiday on the horizon, Eiffel Tower replicas make solid souvenirs – the perfect solution to the perfect crime. “Duke Milligan was about to take a gander at Mickey The Greek’s hideout.”
But of course, they know they need a mob to pull off the job. “We weren’t cut out for crime, either of us.” More than willing to help are color-blind safe-cracking Lackery (Sid James) and his sidekick Shorty (Alfie Bass). “A guy who soft-shoed out the door from the gaming room as quiet as a snake on tip-belly, and I don’t need my case history of Smiling Abe Montana to know that sonny boy was his number-one triggerman, Ricky the Filipino.” Who knew?
Well, Holland knows “There’s nothing to laugh at.” Directed by Charles Crichton. Written by T.E.B. Clarke. “Do not sell!” Their gilded goal: to end up in “a gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease”. (British).
* * *
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
“A lunatic obviously”, bumbling altruistic Cambridge scholar and textile-mill lab-chemist Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) says “I don’t want to get paid” but knows he “shouldn’t have done that”, as he persists in his heavy-hydrogen long-chain molecule experiments, attempting to invent a commercial fabric that never gets dirty and never wears out. “By the time you’re thirty, what are you? Flotsam floating on the flood tide of profits. There’s Capitalism for you.”
Unfortunately, Sidney did not account for the fortunes of his boss, mill-owner Alan Birnley (Cecil Parker) who fires Sidney before realizing he may have found “a better molecule than nylon.”
However lofty mill-owner’s daughter Daphne Birnley (Joan Greenwood) believes in Sidney’s indestructible fabric: “Millions of people all over the world, living lives of drudgery, fighting an endless losing battle against shabbiness and dirt … You’ve set them free. The whole world’s going to bless you!”
Well, not exactly. Sidney’s landlady Mrs. Watson (Edie Martin), wants to know: “Why can’t you scientists leave things alone?” Sidney also didn’t account for sentiments of sheep farmers, cotton growers, mill owners, unionists, importers, middle men, shopkeepers and washerwomen each with an economic stake in the situation.
“What about my bit of washing when there’s no washing to do?” Brilliant Ealing satire of Capital and Labor “hand-in-hand once again, as so often in the past.” Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Screenplay by Mackendrick, John Dighton and Roger MacDougall, based on MacDougall’s play. “How much petrol as against how much ink?” (British).
* * *
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
“As in an old Italian proverb: revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold.” Facing silk-roped gallows, ignoble Tenth Duke of Chalfont, Louis d’Ascoyne Mazzini (Dennis Price) tells improbable tale of his birth in poverty because his mother “married for love, not duty”, thus denying his family heritage.
“I must admit he exhibits the most extraordinary capacity for middle age that I’ve ever encountered in a young man of twenty-four.”
To attain his lofty title, Louis works his way up from window-drapery assistant to dandy Edwardian avenger who violates Sixth Commandment six times to dispatch complete d'Ascoyne family tree (all victims played by Alec Guinness). “It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.”
The Duke knows his wife Sibella has great difficulty telling the truth but is “the perfect combination of imperfections. I’d say that your nose was just a little too short, your mouth just a little too wide. But yours was a face that a man could see in his dreams for the whole of his life. I’d say that you were vain, selfish, cruel, deceitful. I’d say that you were adorable.”
However, Sibella is able to tell one unvarnished truth: “All of your cousins seem to get killed. I really wouldn’t be the least surprised if you murdered them all.” And The Hangman knows he’s never had the royal privilege of hanging a Duke, so he’s prepared some verses “composed by myself for use on these melancholy occasions.”
But The Hangman only kills time, before a messenger arrives with news that the execution is cancelled. “Was Lord Tennyson far from the mark when he wrote: ‘Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood’?” Directed by Robert Hamer. Screenplay by Hamer and John Dighton based on novel by Roy Korniman. “I shot an arrow in the air, she fell to earth in Berkeley Square.” (British).
* * *
Whisky Galore! (1949)
“Do you think Winston Churchill will be knowing that the government has run out of whisky?” Ah, Whisky! “In Gaelic, they call it the Water of Life.”
But WWII has parched Outer Hebridean isle of Todday, one hundred miles from troubled mainland, and its natives are “mourning for a departed spirit.”
Then one stormy 1943 Saturday night, cargo ship S.S. Cabinet Minister runs around off Todday and leaves fifty thousand cases of distilled spirits teetering on briny brink. Alas, everyone on Todday bluff knows “We could be breaking the Sabbath” the next morning.
Among those restless Celts, captain Paul Waggett (Basil Radford) is one pompously proper Brit and Whitehall fish-out-of-water. “What would my colonel say if he knew that my second in command had been locked in his bedroom by his mother?”
Claiming to rule this remote island’s English Home Guard, throttle-bottom Waggett thirsts to prevent locals from “robbing the revenue”.
Postmaster and single father Joseph Macroon (Wylie Watson) is “none too well” over island’s dearth of Scotch, especially when daughters Peggy (Joan Greenwood) and Catriona (Gabrielle Blunt) are all “stick lips and cigarettes” aimed to woo new suitors.
These would be sergeant Fred Odd (Bruce Seton) and teacher George Campbell (Gordon Jackson), respectively. And who just happen to be Capt. Waggett’s first and second in command, respectively.
“We were doing the Panther Crawl the way you showed us, sergeant.” The Biffer (Morland Graham) knows “every rock on Todday by its name” but he owes his life to George Campbell. “It’s a well-known medical fact that some men are born two drinks below par.”
Ealing classic – aka Tight Little Island and Whiskey, a Go-Go – pits dedicated community against lone wolf bureaucrat in shell game of Seal Bay hideaway, alternative petrol, “stone their crows” and his father’s best bagpipe. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Screenplay by Compton Mackenzie and Angus Macphail, from Mackenzie’s novel. “What ‘times’ will there be to ‘move with’ … in Eternity?” (British)
* * *
Passport to Pimlico (1949)
“We were always English, and we will always be English. And it’s just because we are English that we’re sticking up for our rights to be Burgundians!”
In post-war London riddled with ration books and bomb scars, Pimlico shopkeeper Arthur Pemberton (Stanley Holloway) clambers down bomb crater to discover lost French treasure of Burgundy’s exiled Duke Charles-The-Rash, now unburied in plain sight.
London University history professor Hatton-Jones (Margaret Rutherford) ecstatically confirms old parchments proclaim Miramont Place as French Burgundian soil, based on Royal Charter signed by King Edward IV.
“Blimey, I’m a foreigner!”
With Charter in hand, nineteen Brit families in neighborhood set up independent nation within London (like Vatican in Rome) and impose restriction-free zone for eggs, butter, nylons … Whitehall fights to reign in upstart colony now imposing customs inspections of tube trains in underground shadow of Big Ben.
But war-torn Londoners rally round these “innocent victims of destiny” during long “Siege of Burgundy”. Ealing Studio classic inspired Green Grow the Rushes and Local Hero. Directed by Henry Cornelius. Written by T.E.B. Clarke. (British).
* * *
A Run for Your Money (1949)
“It’s easy to see you’ve never been to Wales, miss.”
“That’s right, never further west than the West End.”
Two Welsh coalminers and brothers from "Hafoduwchbenceubwllymarchogcoch" – Tom Jones, aka “Twm” (Meredith Edwards) and David Jones, aka “Dai Number Nine” (Donald Houston) – take their first trip to London to collect a newspaper prize of 100 pounds each and free tickets to a rugby match at Twickenham Stadium. “Well, if you can’t be careful, be clever.”
London Weekly Echo garden correspondent Wimple (Alec Guinness) is assigned to tag along after the boys for their fish-out-of-water-in-the-big-city story. “How much I prefer vegetables to human beings.”
Harpist Huw (Hugh Griffith) finds his fellow countrymen underground and follows suit with his instrument in tow. “This nose can smell the primrose in the spring or the mutton chops cooking or the well-brushed hair of children in the park. It is filled with the savors of innocence … and memory. The motion of the waterfall and the little girl under the haystack, cowslips in the railway cuttings. I can smell out the corruption in a den of hypocrites, scoundrels and dead souls!”
Unfortunately, the brothers get separated when David gets trapped with gold-digger Jo (Moira Lister), “that floozy” who just turned 22 and everyone knows is “no miner”. Indeed, she’s a professional confidence trickster who “specializes in provincials up for a spree.” In other words ... “a con woman!”
Meanwhile Tom and Huw lose a gold watch when they retrieve Huw’s harp from a pawnshop, thus missing the rugby match altogether. “What’s ten bob to a man with two hundred pounds? Chicken feed is ten bob!” Directed by Charles Frend. Written by Frend, Clifford Evans, Richard Hughes and Leslie Norman. (British).
* * *
Hue and Cry (1947)
“Look son, You ought to lay off reading those shockers. You know, I don’t think you’re really a bad boy, just a bit demented.”
Cockney Joe Kirby (Harry Fowler) and his East End Blood-and-Thunder-Boys know London’s crooks somehow communicate through hot-air “Trump” comics, the gang just can’t decipher message well enough to convince Scotland Yard to investigate.
Joe certainly gets no help from his boss, Covent Garden produce vendor Mr. Nightingale aka Jim (Jack Warner), who speaks his own crypto-jargon. “Send me up some alligators too (and) I could do with a fisherman’s daughter … Unless you’ve got some ins-and-outs in, I’m right out.”
Life in post-war London’s bombed-out rubble is bleak for these curious boys, until they find reclusive pulp-comic author Felix H. Wilkinson (terrific Alastair Sim) who helps them “crack the code”.
Gritty Ealing noir thriller and Bowery Boys forerunner, relies on Operation Seagull and “Dick the Dictaphone”, frosted tennis balls and black-eyed choir-boys, phantom license plates and Speak Your Weight. Directed by “King” Charles Crichton. Written by T.E.B. Clarke.
“The insolent scoundrels, they purloined one of my codes, the very code I invented in ‘The Case of the Limping Skeleton’. The child of this brain!” (British).
* * *
On Approval (1944)
“Sleep? On this night of romance … Sleep!?!” In Naughty 1890s: “a young man was more or less expected to sew his wild oats … always providing that there was no harvest.”
However, “Women were women and they didn’t forget it … even if men forgot it.” Selfish and forty-one, wealthy widow Maria Wislack (terrific Beatrice Lillie) has a plan for shopping her next husband, “I should take him away for a month alone – on approval.” All the while she sings: “I’m just 17 and I’ve never been to a stately ball.”
Agreeing to her trial marriage on remote Hebridean isle off Kyle of Lochalsh is bachelor Richard Halton (Roland Culver), who “may be a coward” although he’s “a man of the very highest breeding and the very lowest income”.
Chaperoning them are attractive American pickle heiress Helen Hale (Googie Withers) who knows she’s “a profiteer’s daughter”, and George Tenth-Duke-of-Bristol (Clive Brook), another selfish poverty-stricken bachelor. “A dinner party lasts for two hours. A marriage often last for two years.”
“How dare you whisper to my ex-fiance!” Wacky second film treatment of 1926 West End classic by Frederick Lonsdale, this version leans into white toy poodle, Dundrannock Arms Hotel, the color of her eyes, runaway servants, leaky roof with 15 holes and “Richard, count the silver!”
“I shall expect you in the morning to breakfast at eight-thirty. You’ll find the dingy by the jetty. And you can row yourself across.” Written, directed and performed by Brook. “Tell her to go to hell!” “Ho!”
Richard: “You know how one says things when one’s half unconscious?”
Maria: “The last man I married was frequently in that condition … I found that was the only time he spoke the truth.” (British).
FURTHERMORE
Barr, Charles: Ealing Studios: a Movie Book. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
Perry, George: The Great British Picture Show: from the 90s to the 70s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974.
https://ealingstudios.com/about-ealing/history-3/
http://www.thestudiotour.com/wp/studios/ealing-studios/
https://www.instagram.com/ealingstudios/?hl=en
https://twitter.com/ealingstudios?lang=en
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/buildings/ealing-studios/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ealing_Studios
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ealing_Studios_films
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ealing_comedies#Comedies
https://www.filmmovement.com/product/ealing-studios-comedy-collection
https://www.criterion.com/films/357-kind-hearts-and-coronets
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