The Ladykillers (U)
A bumbling criminal gang rent rooms in an old woman’s home, posing as musicians while they commit a robbery. But a slip up in front of her leads to a murder plot. Another classic Ealing caper starring Alec Guinness.
Phoenix Explores: Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios were responsible for some of the most iconic British films of the 1940s and ‘50s, famous for their comedies but with a back catalogue that also included drama and films to support the war effort.
Phoenix tutor Alan Seaman has put together this list of articles and books that will help to give you an insight into the work of these world famous studios.
Classic Ealing Films available to stream now
The Lavender Hill Mob (U)
Having been in charge of gold bullion deliveries for 20 years, a mild-mannered bank clerk (played by Alec Guinness) hatches a plot to steal a consignment, but finds himself hopelessly out of his depth.
Passport to Pimlico (U)
When the explosion of an old WWII bomb in London’s Pimlico reveals a stash of documents that prove the area is actually French territory, the British government must take steps to regain control. Stanley Holloway stars in this classic comedy.
The Titfield Thunderbolt (U)
When British Rail announce the closure of their local line, a group of railway enthusiasts find their efforts to save the line sabotaged by the rival bus company. They fight back with the Thunderbolt… an ancient engine from the village museum!
Whisky Galore! (U)
When a whisky-laden ship runs aground off the coast of a Scottish island during WWII, the locals think this is their chance to stock up. But the authorities and the island’s teetotallers have other ideas.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (U)
Beautifully restored in 2019 to mark its 70th anniversary, this is arguably the jewel in Ealing’s crown. A distant poor relative of the Duke of D’Ascoyne (Alec Guinness) plots to inherit the title by murdering the eight other heirs who stand ahead of him in the line of succession.
FURTHER READING
Ealing Studios (1938-59)
Mark Duguid, BFI Screenonline.org.uk
It’s rare for a film studio to inspire affection. The giants of Hollywood – Warner Bros, Fox or Paramount, say – might be admired, but not loved. Ealing Studios was loved, and it still is, well over half a century since its heyday…
Michael Balcon (1896-1977)
Brian McFarlane, BFI Screenonline.org.uk
Whatever limitations may now be ascribed to the Ealing Studios output of the 1940s and 1950s, it is undeniably at the centre of any account of the British film industry’s most prestigious period – and is above all the achievement of Michael Balcon…
Remembering Ealing Studios and the golden age of British film
Vincent Dowd, BBC News, 30.8.15
It is 60 years since the end of the most celebrated era of production at Ealing film studios in London, where classics like The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets were shot. Today, just a tiny handful of those involved survive to recall one of the great periods of British filmmaking…
Ealing Comedy
Mark Duguid, BFI Screenonline.org.uk
It’s virtually impossible today to think of Ealing Studios without adding the word ‘comedy’. Even more than half a century after the curtains closed on the classic production outfit, Ealing comedy is one of British cinema’s most powerful brands…
The gentle, trusting Britain that lives for ever in an Ealing comedy
Andrew Gilligan, The Telegraph, 28.7.11
The fuss being made over the 60th anniversary of The Lavender Hill Mob shows how surprisingly relevant these great films remain…
T.E.B. Clarke (1907-1989)
Scott Anthony, BFI Screenonline.org.uk
Thomas Ernest Bennett Clarke (known almost universally as ‘Tibby’) was one of the key architects of the iconic cycle of comedies made at Ealing Studios from the late 1940s to the early 50s, still among the most cherished films in the canon of British cinema…
Ealing Studios: Kind Hearts and Funny Men
Matthew Sweet, The Independent, 28.7.02
Ealing Studios – producer of some of Britain’s best-loved comedies – is 100 this year. But what was it really like to work there? And what went on behind the scenes? Matthew Sweet meets the veterans…
The Great Ealing Film Challenge 40: Let George Do It (1940)
Dr Keith M. Johnston, Lecturer in Film & Television Studies, University of East Anglia
This film may be more famous as “the one where George Formby punches Hitler”, but that reputation arguably conceals a more complex narrative than Come on George (1939), while also revisiting most of the basic concepts seen in Formby’s Ealing films to date: mistaken identity, unconvincing romantic couple, ukulele numbers, and broad slapstick…
Cheer Boys Cheer (1939)
Bryony Dixon, screenonline.org.uk
A proto-Ealing comedy, Cheer Boys Cheer is excluded from the official canon merely by virtue of its date. The similarities with the classic postwar Ealing titles are many: in its story of a large purveyor of poor beer versus a small traditional brewery, it pits the small concern against the corporate; the individual against the hierarchy; the paternalistic against the authoritarian…
Ealing at War
Mark Duguid, screenonline.org.uk
Ealing was one of only three major pre-war studios to continue production throughout World War II and, like Alexander Korda’s London Films, it devoted much of its output to films designed to promote the war effort…
The Cruel Sea (1952)
Freddie Gaffney, screenonline.org.uk
Eight years after the end of World War II, Michael Balcon’s Ealing Studios brought Nicholas Monsarrat’s best-selling novel The Cruel Sea to the screen, launching the careers of Donald Sinden (Lieutenant Lockhart), Denholm Elliott (Lieutenant Morell)…
That Ealing Moment: The Blue Lamp
Dylan Cave, bfi.org.uk
Curator Dylan Cave puzzles over a cosy police drama with one of the most shocking moments in British cinema.
The Proud Valley (1940)
Stephen Bourn, screenonline.org.uk
On 25 February 1940 The Proud Valley made history as the first film to be premiered on radio, when the BBC broadcast a sixty-minute version, reproduced from its soundtrack, on its Home Service…
Five Reasons to Watch Pioneering Ealing Drama ‘Mandy’
David Parkinson, bfi.org.uk
Underrated alongside his great Ealing comedies Whisky Galore! and The Ladykillers, Alexander Mackendrick’s moving drama about the experiences of a young deaf girl has much to say about a previous age of austerity in Britain.
BOOKS:
Michael Balcon Presents: A Lifetime of Films
Michael Balcon, (Hutchinson, 1969)
Ealing Studios
Charles Barr, (3rd Edition; Cameron & Hollis, 1999)
Ealing Revisited
Mark Duguid, Lee Freeman, Keith Johnston and Melanie Williams (eds), (Palgrave/BFI, 2012)
Forever Ealing: A Celebration of the Great British Film Studio
George Perry, (Pavilion/Michael Joseph, 1981)
Lethal Innocence: The Cinema of Alexander MacKendrick
Philip Kemp, (Methuen, 1991)