In 1947, Ealing's Hue and Cry (d. Charles Crichton), its first comedy since the war, was a surprise hit. An entertaining story of a criminal gang foiled by an enthusiastic army of schoolboys, the film met a public desire for relief after years of fighting and continuing hardships.
The studio released many comedies before and during the war, and Cheer Boys, Cheer (d. Walter Forde, 1939) anticipates many of the characteristics of the postwar cycle. But 'Ealing Comedy' proper began in 1949, with the consecutive release of Passport to Pimlico (d. Henry Cornelius), Whisky Galore! (d. Alexander Mackendrick) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (d. Robert Hamer).
The typical example celebrates the small man's struggle against impersonal authority, and expresses a good-natured fantasy of rebellion, as in Passport to Pimlico, in which the residents of a London street briefly break from English rule and escape the ordeal of rationing, or The Lavender Hill Mob (d. Charles Crichton, 1951), in which a mild-mannered bank clerk masterminds a robbery of the Bank of England's gold reserves.
These two - and several others - were written by the prolific T.E.B. Clarke. But an altogether darker, more subversive vision is presented by Ealing directors Robert Hamer and Alexander Mackendrick.
In Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets, a frustrated commoner gleefully murders his way to a dukedom. Mackendrick's The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955) show the weight of anachronistic conservatism crushing innovation and change.
Alec Guinness, already a theatrical success, became a huge star thanks to his several Ealing performances, including an entire dynasty in Kind Hearts.
Not all the postwar Ealing comedies are so memorable, but the best - at least half a dozen - are genuine classics, whose wit and charm have easily survived more than half a century.
Mark Duguid
Further reading:
Balcon, Michael, Michael Balcon presents: a lifeteme of films (Hutchinson, 1969)
Barr, Charles, Ealing Studios (2nd Edition;
Studio Vista, 1993)
Perry, George, Forever Ealing: a celebration of the great British film studio (Pavilion/Michael Joseph, 1981)
Kemp, Philip, Lethal innocence: the cinema of Alexander Mackendrick (Methuen, 1991)
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