Ealing Comedies- S/D

Another top-notch ILE film thread.

recently got the ladykillers and the man in the white suit on DVD

don't know what about ealing comedies would or wouldn't be lost on americans or whoever that british people find funny/important/something because it's another one of those things

haven't seen the new ladykillers but assume it is set in america

also, should think it's whisky, rather than whiskey, galore

OK, I've salvaged a few interesting facts from this documentary that maybe everybody knows already: the multiple Sir Alec shots in Kind Hearts were done in the camera, Méliès-style, to improve the quality of the image. Marty Scorcese claims the voiceovers in Goodfellas drew on these in KH&C. Balcon is pronounced like "Balkan."

Saw The Man In The White Suit the other day; it didn't actually make me laugh, but I think it's an excelent movie nevertheless.

The Local FNAC has launched some other titles, as part of a cringeworthily titled new series called So British! What does ILX think of these?

Kind Hearts & Coronets
The Lavendar Hill Mob
Scott Of The Antartic

Kind Hearts & Coronets - total classic
The Lavender Hill Mob - funny but not deep at all
Scott Of The Antarctic - haven't seen

Kind Hearts and Coronets is excellent. Even now its cynicism is quite astounding.

I think its the cynical side of Ealing that keeps their best films fresh. Even if they're not laugh-out-loud funny, the rather jaded view of human nature will still resound with a modern audience.

Ladykillers, Man in The White Suit, Lavender Hill Mob, Heaven's Above! are all worth checking out. I think the more sentimental side of Ealing e.g. "Titfield Thunderbolt" probably hasn't dated as well.

Kind Hearts... is the best of the bunch, but The Man in the White Suit has Guinness' most underrated performance.

I guess it should be mentioned on this thread that the term "go-go" as in "go-go dancing" comes from a Parisian club called the Whisky à Go-Go (like the later, similarly named LA club) which is the French translation of Whisky Galore.

My favorite of the ones with Guinness was The Man in the White Suit, one of the best comedies about capitalism.

otm ... very timely, too

Passport To Pimlico might be my fave, and a terrific thematic watch during this uncharacteristically hot London Summer.

Is there a good book on Ealing?

There's a couple I would recommend - Charles Barr's Ealing Studios (first published in 1977, twice updated) is the standard critical work. The BFI's more recent Ealing Revisited (2012) is an excellent critical anthology that concentrates on less familiar parts of the studio's output (it also has an extremely useful filmography that is more complete than anything on the web).

Oh, and Michael Newton's BFI monograph on Kind Hearts and Coronets is good too, especially on the film's queer subtext.

And Ealing NON-comedies! Pink String and Sealing Wax is a riproaring Victorian Brighton murder tale. Googie Withers a treat as always.

I guess The Man in the White Suit was Ealing's only science fiction film? Although I can hardly say I've seen most of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ealing_Studios_films
so maybe there's more.

hue and cry is a neat lil kids detective/gangster film - makes good use of bombed out london

I didn’t realise that passport to pimlico, whiskey galore and kind hearts and coronets all came out within months of each other in 1949. I want to see the other three films that came out that year and see if they are any good. Train of events looks like it might be interesting.

Had a rewatch of Kind Hearts, new disc via KL. If anything, the multi-performances of Guinness (duly amazing) have overshadowed the other sterling elements: the script, Dennis Price and Joan Greenwood, etc.

Dennis Price is awesome in it.

"I always say my west window has all the exuberance of Chaucer without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities of his period."

one of 40 lines tied for first in it

I watched the very beginning last night since it was leaving Criterion then couldn’t stay awake to watch it properly, but agree with you two.

HI DERE