DVD Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico):
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DVD Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
Ealing Studios was the birthplace of the most delectable crop of movies to decorate postwar cinemas, a group of veddy British comedies that nevertheless spoke the international language. By necessity, the Ealing Studios Comedy Collection takes second place to the Alec Guinness Collection, the latter being the crème de la crème of Ealing's signature actor. But the Comedy Collection is nevertheless a stem-to-stern delight.
Three films from Ealing's zenith year, 1949, anchor the collection. Passport to Pimlico captures the mood of postwar London via an absurdist plot: the detonation of an unexploded bomb in Pimlico reveals a 400-year-old decree proclaiming the neighborhood an independent royal territory of Burgundy. Their independence thus established, the locals (led by Stanley Holloway) celebrate their freedom from rationing and taxation. A Run for Your Money follows two Welsh coalmining brothers after they win a newspaper contest for tickets to a London rugby match; in this modest comedy, Alec Guinness sketches one of his eccentric little supporting gems.
Whisky Galore! is one of the best Ealing films--funny but also rather lovely. During the war, the remote Scottish island of Todday is starved for scarce whisky, until a shipwreck strands thousands of cases of "the water of life" tantalizingly within reach. Basil Radford is hilariously misguided as the island's chief of Defense, and Joan Greenwood lends her fetching presence--but every member of the large ensemble is terrific. The gifted Alexander Mackendrick debuted as director, and his sense of timing and tone is impeccable. (It was retitled Tight Little Island in the U.S., where it scored a big hit.)
Mackendrick also directed the marvelous 1954 comedy The Maggie, with Paul Douglas as a go-go American businessman whose cargo (and life) is slowed by a broken-down scow chugging from Glasgow to the islands. Traces of melancholy underlie the humor, and one wonders if this film might have been a model for the thematically similar Local Hero. Finally, The Titfield Thunderbolt, from 1953, is a Charles Crichton-directed farce about a small town going into the railroad business (and the first Ealing comedy in color). Its anarchy borders on the abrasive at times, although Stanley Holloway is in fine form as a benefactor who demands his own drinking car on the train. --Robert Horton
Review(s): DVD Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
A excellent collection of forties and fifties British comedies
Why is British cinema so lightly regarded? Unlike many such general questions, there is an identifiable reason why British film, especially from the thirties, forties, and fifties, fares so poorly in critical regard, and that reason is French auteur criticism. In the fifties, as Andre Bazin and other Cahiers du Cinema critics were formulating their ideas, it was decided that British film was second rate. David Lean was rejected, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had not yet been rediscovered, and while Carol Reed's talent was acknowledged, he wasn't considered to belong to what Andrew Sarris would popularize as the Pantheon of great directors. I think this judgment to be utterly unjustified, but space prevents a detailed discussion. I personally have long loved and enjoyed British films and one of the great frustrations of my enthusiasm it has been the enormous difficulty in finding the variety of films that I would have liked. Needless to say, I'm always delighted when sets like this one are released. I had seen all of the film included before except for THE MAGGIE, but I am grateful that all are now readily available.
Ealing Studios were responsible for a substantial number of the finest films of the forties and fifties in Great Britain. Though they made a wide range of films, their comedies, especially a string of great Alec Guinness vehicles, remain among their most beloved. The films here are among their finest non-Guinness films (he appears in A RUN FOR YOUR MONEY, but in a supporting role). Though quite diverse, they share a number of common elements. Just as in the United States technological advances led to more and more filming off studio lots and on location, so in Britain films were being shot outside the studio. As a result we get in these films some of the best visual portraits of specific locales at the time. The films are also remarkable for their superb orchestral scores. Unlike the United States, writing for motion pictures did not bear the stigma in Britain that it did in Hollywood and as a result you see some first rate composers writing directly for the screen.
PASSPORT TO PIMLICO is an almost surreal comedy about residents of a street in Pimlico (a section of London) learning shortly after WW II that their area had actually been ceded to Burgundy centuries earlier. The rest of the film is a struggle between the community, asserting its right to ignore the rationing that following WW II, and London over the ownership of the remarkable treasure that was found along with the Burgundian documents. It is on one level silly, but it is elevated to a superb comedy due to the talents of the cast. Easily the most recognizable actor in the film is Stanley Holloway, who later would win an Oscar as Eliza Doolittle's father in MY FAIR LADY. It also features one of the least successful film appearances of the fine acting duo of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (they were much better in films like Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, Carol Reed's NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH, and the golf segment of DEAD OF NIGHT).
WHISKY GALORE is easily the finest film in the set, a tale in the Outer Hebrides. Based on a real life ship wreck, it is the story of how whisky-deprived Scots during WW II raid a ship stranded on rocks salvaged a few hundred cases of whisky and the efforts of the over zealous home guard officer to recover it. This is an absolutely outstanding cast, filled with great performances both by folks whose faces are familiar but names are unknown, as well as a handful of name performers. Among the latter, Basil Radford, here without Naunton Wayne, is marvelous as the home guard officer. I have always thought that Joan Greenwood was one of the most enticing actresses in the history of film. If I could cast anyone from history in the role of Circe, she would be the one. She was not only beautiful and a fine actress, she possessed one of the great voices in film (put to great use in the Michael Redgrave version of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST). Jean Cadell steals every scene she is in as an overbearing mother, while a very young Gordon Jackson, later to achieve fame in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, plays her son.
A RUN FOR YOUR MONEY concerns two Welsh miners who win a prize for two hundred pounds and a trip to a soccer match in London. Though ostensibly starring Donald Houston and Meredith Edwards, the film is largely taken over by supporting characters. Moira Lister is fine as a confidence woman, but even better is the remarkable Hugh Griffith as a Welshman who earlier left their town of the improbably named Hafoduwchbenceubwllymarchogcoch for success in London, but had been so reduced to poverty that he had had to hock his beloved harp. Alec Guinness is good in support, though not as good as one might expect. Interestingly, he acts here without his wig, one of the few times in his career he would appear au natural (though one of his characters in KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS was wigless-several other bald actors, including Fred Astaire and Humphrey Bogart, never appeared in a film with their own hair).
THE MAGGIE I had never seen before. It features a fine performance by Alex Mackenzie as the master of a coal boat in what was almost inconceivably his film debut, even though he was in his late sixties. The cast is largely unknowns, though the American actor Paul Douglas stars as the American businessman whose goods the Maggie attempts to transport. This is not a great film, but I was transfixed by the large number of remarkable location shots throughout Scotland.
THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT is the kind of understated charming film that the British seem to excel at. The plot is simple: the local line of the railway is being shut down, but the locals team together to keep the line running, despite the machinations of the local bus company. This was one of the first color films that Ealing did and it is from first to last an exquisite film to gaze at. Like with the other films, there is the sense of a time that has been lost being captured on film. It is not the kind of film that will make you laugh; it is more the kind that will make you smile and grin. My only complaint is a remarkably abrupt ending. The cast is a strong one, with Stanley Holloway, Hugh Griffith, and Naunton Wayne, here without Basil Radford. The train used at the end of the film was authentic, an engine over a hundred years old at the time of filming.
All of these films have been wonderfully restored and the images for all are absolutely first rate. However, I've never seen such a bare bones set in my life. No extras, no commentaries, not even trailers. This is a disappointment, especially given the cost of the set, but at least the prints are superb, and thankfully these not-always-easy-to-find films have at least been made available on DVD. I heartily urge anyone interested in high quality comedy to give these films a try.
Indispensable
There was a time after World War II when life wasn't all about edge. These marvelous comedies celebrate a kind of eccentric innocence that we may never see again, especially and sadly in the loutish UK of today. It almost brings tears through the laughter.
Classic British G rated entertainment
Simply entertaining 50s British comedy. All in a value for money package.
Should be in every DVD collection.
Related DVD's Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
Over the years I have with effort to see a large number of British films and had seen four of the five films in this collection. In all four cases, however, the print I saw was vastly inferior to the superb prints contained in this fascinating set of films. So far I've seen three sets of DVDs from Ealing: one featuring the films of Alec Guinness, another containing several non-Guinness comedies, and this collection of war films. I hope that they don't stop with these. Although the sets are remarkable for the utter and complete absence of extras (and by none I truly do mean none), the prints themselves have in ever instance been impeccable. A bit about each film.
THE DAM BUSTERS--Of all the films in the set, this is the one that is most widely available. I first saw... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 22 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Fans of classic movie musicals will be in heaven with Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1, featuring the DVD debut of five films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the quintessential dancing duo. The two gems of the set are Top Hat (1935), generally considered their definitive movie, and Swing Time (1936), which many consider their most enjoyable. Follow the Fleet (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) fill out the set, each with its own charms.
Among the earliest writers to set his sights on the director's chair, Preston Sturges brought a frank, unsentimental view of the war between the sexes to his mid-'40s features that exemplify his style, as demonstrated in this prescient 1942 gem. Architect Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and his wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), further refine the archetypal Sturges couple--the male embodying strength, idealism, and a certain naivete, the female ultimately stronger, smarter, and (as revealed early on in an astonishing speech by Colbert) clearer-eyed and more pragmatic about the subtext of sex. This giddy shaggy-dog story follows the couple's split, and Gerry's subsequent flight to Palm Beach. This head-snapping frolic is paced by double-entendres and lampooning looks at the very rich, with... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Joel McCrea Director(s): Preston Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Almost as welcome as a shaker full of martinis, The Complete Thin Man Collection represents an eagerly awaited DVD milestone for fans of the fizzy MGM movie series. The best film in the series came first: The Thin Man (1934), W.S. Van Dyke's marvelous adaptation of a Dashiell Hammet novel. The movie gods were in a generous mood when they paired William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the upper-class sophisticates whose sleuthing escapades somehow joined the classic form of the whodunit with the giddyup of screwball comedy. Among the series' many attributes, one of its most radical notions was the idea that a married couple might find each other delightful and view life as a goofy adventure together.
It is common wisdom that the Thin Man sequels... More Info about this DVD Director(s): W.S. Van Dyke DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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