PINK STRING AND SEALING WAX. (1945) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Enjoy Ealing Studios Rarities In New DVD Collection

Network Distributing is delighted to announce the first volume of THE EALING STUDIOS RARITIES COLLECTION (U). Featuring 4 films from the vaults of Ealing Studios and Associated Talking Pictures, this double-disc set is available to own on 8 April 2013. This volume consists of films by Basil Dearden, Harry Watt, Carol Reed and Leo Mittler. Unseen since their original cinema releases and presented as new transfers in their original aspect ratios, THE EALING STUDIOS RARITIES COLLECTION VOLUME 1 is an essential addition to anyone interested in classic British films as well as long-forgotten gems from one of the UK’s most iconic production houses.

Disc One

ESCAPE (1930). Director: Basil Dearden
Based on John Galsworthy’s 1921 play, ESCAPE charts the experiences of Captain Matt Denant, sentenced to a term in Dartmoor after accidentally killing a plain-clothes policeman during a quarrel. Unable to bear the harsh conditions of prison life, Matt escapes across the moor – finding his freedom at the mercy of the various characters he encounters.
Starring Gerald du Maurier, Madeleine Carroll, Ian Hunter, Gordon Harker, Edna Best, Austin Trevor and Horace Hodges| Written John Galsworthy| Original Music by Ernest Irving

WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1954) Director: Harry Watt
Bob Payton learns that the Galanas, an African tribe he has befriended, are being forced by soil erosion to move from their homelands. He urges their Chief, Ushingo, to lead them into the hills where they will find fresh, fertile soil and peaceful living; but the young men of the tribe favour the attractions of Mombasa, which represent a new, exciting way of life. Payton knows that such a move would be fatal, placing the Galanas in the way of many temptations – not least the activities of ivory smugglers.
Starring Anthony Steel, Sheila Sim, Edric Connor, Martin Benson, Orlando Martins and William Simons| Written by Harry Watt, Max Catto and Jack Whittingham| Original Music by Alan Rawsthorne performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra| Produced by Leslie Norman

Disc Two

PENNY PARADISE (1938). Director: Carol Reed
Joe Higgins is the captain of a Liverpool tug, with a pretty daughter, Betty, a forgetful Irish first mate, Pat, and a predilection for spending a weekly sixpence on the football pools. When Pat forgets to post Joe’s coupon on the week a winning line is drawn, chaos and frantic comedy are the result…
Starring Edmund Gwenn, Betty Driver, Jimmy O’ Dea, Ethel Coleridge, Maire O’Neill, Jack Livesey, Syd Crossley and James Harcourt| Written by Thomas Browne, Basil Dean, W.L. Meade and Thomas Thompson| Original Music by Ernest Irving| Produced by Basil Dean

CHEER UP! (1936). Director: Leo Mittler
A struggling playwright hopes to market a musical comedy that he has written in collaboration with another equally penurious composer. Anxious to secure the backing of a millionaire, the two composers only succeed in making him angry – until, following a chain of misunderstandings, they finally emerge triumphant. Comic situations and melody play important roles in the film, which includes several spectacular dance routines.
Starring Stanley Lupino, Sally Gray, Roddy Hughes, Gerald Barry, Kenneth Kove and Wynne Weaver| Written by Michael Barringer and Stanley Lupino| Music Arranged and Performed by Percy Mackey and his Orchestra| Produced by Stanley Lupino

Buy The Ealing Rarities Collection - Volume 1 On DVD

Dance Hall DVD Review

Ealing Studios had a way of always surprising you. Though their name may be most readily associated with comedy they were equally prolific in other genres, a favourite of which was social drama. A classic example of this was Dance Hall (1950), which centred around the lives and loves of a group of young girls and the dance hall they frequented in Chiswick, west London. Directed by Ealing stalwart Charles Crichton, and edited by Seth Holt who would go on to helm the Hammer classic The Nanny (1965), this film starring Diana Dors, Petula Clark and Natasha Parry, showed the passions and rivalry inspired by ballroom dancing long before anyone had ever heard of Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly.

Eve (Parry) loves ballroom dancing and, along with her friends from the local factory, spends all her spare time at the local dance hall in the hope that with enough practice she will be chosen for the Greater London Dance Championships. However her boyfriend Phil (Donald Houston) is not such a hot hoofer, and becomes jealous when Eve joins up with a new partner Alec (Bonar Colleano). Phil persuades Eve to forget about dancing and marry him, but she quickly becomes disillusioned with life as a housewife and is soon lured back to the dance hall after meeting her old friends from the factory. When Phil discovers that she has been back with her friends and met up again with Alec, he looses his patience with his new wife with disastrous results for all.

Dance Hall is significant, not only in the cannon of Ealing Studios but also in the wider history of British film, as an exercise in social commentary both in its storyline as well as in its production. Set as it is so shortly after the end of the Second World War, the film is a piquant reminder of a time when the roles of men and women were very different from they are today. Eve and her friends may be independent in as far as they go to work and make their own way (even if their jobs are reminiscent of the factory work women did during the war). However once married (as is seen with Eve and Phil) their lives soon revert to the old scenario of the wife staying at home whilst the husband goes out to earn the money.

Less obvious perhaps is the way these stereotypical gender roles played out behind the camera. One of the film's three writers, along with E. V. H. Emmett and Alexander Mackendrick, Diana Morgan was amongst only six women (mostly uncredited) in a production crew of thirty nine. Women were obviously seen on the screen in Ealing's films, but they seldom played significant roles behind the scenes other than in the usual female dominated areas of makeup and costume. To be honest though, this male dominance in film production was not restricted to Ealing, as it was common throughout the film industry until more recent times.

Released by STUDIOCANAL on DVD with a host of extras including a Making of featurette, Restoration Comparison and Trailer, Dance Hall provides a nostalgic glimpse of a time when life, though harsher in many ways than it is today, was often simpler and more prone to happy endings.

Cleaver Patterson

★★★☆☆☆

Rating:PG
DVD Release Date: 21st January 2013 (UK)
Director:Charles Crichton
Cast:  Donald Houston, Bonar Colleano , Petula Clark, Natasha Parry, Diana Dors
Buy:

'Nowhere to Go' DVD Review

Classic British film studio Ealing has been seeing a great retrospective this season, with screenings of its classic movies and the release of some of its less renowned pieces to DVD for the first time. The latest in this release schedule is Nowhere to Go, the 1959 excursion into Brit-Noir directed by Seth Holt (Hammer films The Nanny and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb) and scripted by Holt and film critic Ken Tynan. For classic British cinema fans it’s an absolute treat, and something not to be missed out on.

            The film follows the exploits of Paul Gregory (George Nader) a conman and thief as he escapes prison and goes straight back into the game. As Gregory quickly slips into a mess of thievery and betrayal, the outcome seems bleak and his only hope may lie with socialite Bridget Howard (the sensational Maggie Smith) and an audacious escape from London.

            The opening break-in at a prison after dark, a mysterious figure at a decrepit train station, long shadows, and a stellar kick-off from Dizzy Reece’s Jazz score all set the film up wonderfully. The script is perfectly constructed to show a world of old-school thieves and con artists who know all the tricks in the book, Nader’s strongest scenes are those where he watches a situation then deducts his way in; darting eyes, brief moments of apprehension before it all fizzles away and his persona has reconstructed to go with the flow. Gregory’s mind is, in the first half particularly, a joy to watch at work, we see the steps leading up to something then the penny drops and the audience catch up. The silent brooding reasoning of a conman has surely never been so coolly executed. Bernard Lee (M from the old Bond movies) pops up as a conman acquaintance who is just as adept as Gregory, and Maggie Smith controls the screen as a dubious and possibly dangerous ally, the role was Smith’s feature film debut and got her nominated for the Most Promising Newcomer BAFTA.

            There’s not exactly a complex plot at work here, and the film doesn’t flaunt a hive of activity, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring or simple, though there are definitely moments where attention can wander. Here beats the heart of an old fashioned kind of thriller, something that stands the test of time and really makes you realise how dispensable most modern films, of the ilk, are. This film doesn’t need special effects or rampant gun totting because it has its eyes on a gritty sort of realism, and realism associated purely with mid-century British crime.

            The camera work and set-up of shots directly looks at that grittiness, the predominantly dark feel of the film, the environments, and the beautifully executed shots that can almost be taken as intimate stand-alone frames. Pick what you like; it’s all easy on the eye. In particular the film reaches a great climax which sees Gregory hounded to Wales after the criminal fraternity turn their back on him. Here he is in as much danger as he was in London and here the film reaches a poignant dramatic conclusion which puts the whole film into context as the trials and tribulations of a man caught in a trap of his own misguided actions.

            Nowhere to Go picks its way through 50’s London high-life via the lowlife, Nader gives a career best performance with stellar support, and the film is beautifully shot. The only thing more criminal than Gregory’s actions is that this film hasn't made it to DVD already.

SCOTT CLARK

★★★1/2☆

Rating: PG
DVD Release Date: 14th January 2013 (UK)
Directed By: Seth Holt
Cast: George Nader, Maggie Smith and Bernard Lee 
Buy Nowhere To Go: 

The Titfield Thunderbolt 60th Anniversary DVD Review

I was thrilled to discover recently that Hornby (they of the model railways) have released a replica of the grand old Titfield Thunderbolt as part of their “trains on film” series in celebration of The Titfield Thunderbolt’s 60thanniversary. My initial joy at hearing this news was sadly curtailed when, on inspection, the model advertised on Hornby’s website proved not to be the venerable old engine liberated from Titfield’s museum at all. Instead, the model on offer appears to be a 1:76 scale version of the Thunderbolt’s predecessor, the rather less colourful locomotive that finds its way unceremoniously into a ditch around the film’s halfway mark. Never mind Hornby, at least you tried.

Thankfully, Studio Canal’s 60th anniversary offering is harder to find fault with; a beautifully restored DVD re-release of Charles Crichton’s uplifting 1953 Ealing comedy, The Titfield Thunderbolt. This amiable Ealing offering transports viewers back to an age when inept and avaricious nationalised rail services were making life unbearable for the average commuter, rather than inept and avaricious privatised ones.

On one terribly idyllic morning the residents of the tiny village of Titfield are greeted with the unfortunate news that their crucial branch line, arterial transport route and lifeblood of the community, is to be closed in favour of a bus service. Naturally the residents are outraged, a bus route means paved roads, street signs, zebra crossings and the like; certainly not a fit and proper state of affairs for this sleepy corner of middle England.

Showing true English entrepreneurial spirit, an eccentric bunch of locals band together to run the line themselves. The local squire will act as guard, the village vicar will drive the thing, and the wealthy landlord - motivated by nothing more than an opportunity to begin his daily drinking at some ungodly hour – will fund the entire venture from his own, vast, pocket.

It’s a cheerful affair, a glimpse at an England largely lost to mass production and drab, characterless urban sprawl; a charming invocation of a serene age of long summer afternoons, friendly pints in the local boozer and peculiar British eccentricity.

For the cynic, the naysayer, it’s another example of British cinema with one eye on the past, rather than two on the future; a vision of quaint simplicity, an atavistic dwelling on past glories. Well perhaps it is a little quaint, but the next time your bus replacement service dumps you in drab, characterless trading estate with nought but a Starbucks in which to while away your miserable hours; you might decide that to be resolutely old-fashioned is not such a bad thing.

Chris Banks

(@Chris_in_2D)

★★★★☆

Rating: U
DVD/Bluray Release Date: 14th January 2013 (UK)
Director: Charles Crichton
Stars: Stanley Holloway, George Relph ,Naunton Wayne, John Gregson, Sid James

Buy/Pre-Order The Titfield Thunderbolt:

The Man In The White Suit DVD Review (1951)

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ealing virtuoso Alexander Mackendrick, The Man in the White Suit finds itself on the receiving end of a restoration and re-release.

Mackendrick’s amusingly sardonic tale, based on his cousin Roger McDougall’s play, gives Alec Guinness a chance to shine as the stubborn genius, Sidney Stratton. Following a dismissal from his previous bout of employment, Sidney finds himself working in the research laboratory of a textile factory in a non-descript corner of the North. Stratton’s zealous obsession with bloody-minded progress leads to him inventing a revolutionary type of fabric that never gets dirty and is impossible to damage. Unfortunately for Stratton, his invention is met with hostility from both the factory owners and the unionised labour, who perceive the invention as a threat to repeat business and job security respectively.

As a resourceful and strident dissection of the state of (at the time) modern British institutions, The Man in the White Suit is ferocious. It’s a frequently angry film, and it has no qualms about taking a pretty fierce swipe at all its constituent factions; none of whom with which you can ever completely sympathise. The grasping mill owners are, aspiring but greedy, and singularly fail to see anything but the worst in the potential and brilliance of Stratton’s work, so concerned are they with filling their own coffers. While the militant factory workers also baulk at Stratton’s indestructible suit; they’ve fought hard enough for their tea break, they’ll be damned if they lose their jobs in the name of science.

Strangely enough, Stratton isn’t whiter than white himself. His pig-headed determination to see progress, almost for the sake of it, seems generous, but there’s an almost complete lack of consideration for the consequences. You’re left with the feeling that the film is perhaps looking to warn against the dangers accompanying modernisation post-war, but can’t quite work out at whom to lay the bulk of the blame. Perhaps we’re all as bad as each other.

It’s tempered by a playful, ironic sense of humour that sees Stratton’s early experiments going explosively wrong, to the bouncy accompanying noise of his tubes and pipes bubbling and whistling away. The desperate finale sees Stratton tearing through the dimly lit alleys of industrial Britain, clad in his infernal invention, like a man possessed.
Mackendrick’s peculiarly engrossing comedy feels like a bit of a mismatch at times, but it’s a combination of frustration, fear and wit which is neatly glued together by the gravitas of Guinness’s naively endearing man in his white suit.

Chris Banks (@Chris_in_2D)

★★★★☆

Rating: PG
Directed By:Alexander Mackendrick
Cast: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood , Cecil Parker
Buy The Man In The White Suit:DVD/ Blu-ray

It Always Rains on Sunday DVD Review

A snapshot of post-war, working class austerity, It Always Rains on Sunday, released in 1947, makes its way back onto cinema screens as part of the BFI’s Ealing retrospective, and is granted a special edition DVD release into the bargain.

Robert Hamer’s engaging drama, is arguably much less well known than Ealing’s comedic offerings, but its relative anonymity compared to the studio’s later offerings hides a stylistic and thematic ingenuity that prefigures not just nourish thrillers which would flourish shortly after, but also the working-class graft of the British New Wave.

Trapped in a joyless existence of bleak domesticity, dejected housewife Rose (Googie Withers) finds her dull life upset by the sudden reappearance of old flame, Tommy (John McCallum), on the run from police having recently escaped from Dartmoor Prison. As the routine of a typical Sunday unfolds around her, Rose desperately attempts to keep the presence of her former lover a secret from her husband, stepdaughters, and the cluttered, tangled lives of the street’s inhabitants: petty thieves, inquisitive journalists in search of a story, prying policemen and wheeler-dealer businessmen whose lives all contribute to a neat tapestry of supporting and intruding narrative threads.

It’s a bit of a conundrum to explain why It Always Rains on Sunday is not regularly included amongst the pantheon of Ealing greats. Perhaps the plain truth is that it was too much, too soon; a dangerous, determined piece of cinema intent on confronting the problems and realities of a post-war Britain, rather than playing on past glories.

The stylish Noir-tinged finale, the breathless chase through the Stratford train yard, faultlessly photographed by Douglas Slocombe would seem to echo that most illustrious of British thrillers, The Third Man, were it not for the fact that Robert Hamer’s daunting, dizzying chase through the shadows pre-dates Carol Reed’s masterpiece by two years. The low-key grind of daily life amongst the bomb-scarred terraces of the East End also provides us with a glimpse of the kind of social realism that wouldn’t be fully exulted for a decade or so.

If you are already familiar with this largely unheralded gem, do yourself a favour and reacquaint yourself. If not, find it and discover a wonderfully progressive masterwork of British cinema.

Chris Banks(@Chris_in_2D)

★★★★1/2

Rating:PG
DVD Re-release Date:12th November 2012 (UK)
Directed By:Robert Hamer
Cast: Googie Withers, Jack Warner , John McCallum
Buy:It Always Rains On Sunday (Digitally Remastered) [Blu-ray] / DVD