British Ealing Studio comedies: Comic anarchy<\/p>\n
By Jane Freebury<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Have posters for hard-boiled action movies been
\nbearing down on you lately? The option exists to look away and
\ntowards the Widjojo Center in South Jakarta where the British
\nCouncil is screening selections from comic masterpieces of
\nBritish screen. Light relief has slipped into town and it is
\navailable to the viewer who can peel off to a mid-afternoon
\nscreening, before the hujan downpour begins, on Tuesdays and
\nFridays until mid-May.<\/p>\n
These comedies, the Ealing Studio comedies, were made after
\nWorld War II in a Britain still living among bombed-out ruins
\nwhile coping with the trials of daily life, like having to use
\nvouchers for purchasing household essentials. Tough economic
\nconstraint nonetheless brought out some of Britain's best-ever
\ncomic films, films that dealt with the problems of ordinary men
\nand women fed up with their lot -- and prone to dream a daydream
\nor two.<\/p>\n
Over the next few weeks Passport to Pimlico (directed by Henry
\nCornelius in 1948) and The Lavendar Hill Mob (Charles Crichton,
\n1951) will be screened. These films are remembered not so much
\nfor their directorial flourish as for their actors -- Alec
\nGuinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Margaret Rutherford --
\nand for their funny, funny screenplays (The Lavendar Hill Mob won
\nT.E.B. Clark an Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay). In
\nthe film academies, attention of a more sober kind has been given
\nto the Ealing comedies' reflections on the social reality of
\nBritain in the late 1940s and early 1950s.<\/p>\n
The Lavendar Hill Mob is a fantasy turn about a bland bank
\nclerk called Holland (Alec Guinness in steel-rimmed specs). He
\ndreams of another life beyond the boarding house where he lives,
\nbeyond the streets with throngs of bowler-hatted clones and
\nbeyond the bank where he has put in 20 years of faithful service.
\nMaking his nostrils twitch with the whiff of adventure are the
\ngold bars that lie on the floor of the security van that he rides
\nfrom bullion refinery to bank vault.<\/p>\n
As luck would have it, Henry Holland works in the bullion
\noffice of a bank, a position he has acquired through a reputation
\nfor apparent unwavering honesty.<\/p>\n
He is lonely but not alone, not the only one waiting for his
\nbig chance. A new boarder (Stanley Holloway as Pendlebury)
\narrives at his lodgings, the Balmoral Private Hotel, bringing
\nalong with him a tacky array of artworks (his creations) and
\ncrates of tacky souvenirs (his business).<\/p>\n
The piles of Ann Hathaway cottage miniatures and the Eiffel
\nTower paperweights inspire Holland to hit on an idea.<\/p>\n
Nobody would notice the difference between leaden gold-plated
\npaperweights and solid gold paperweights, now would they? By
\ninsinuation he is able to enlist Mr. Pendlebury of Gew Gaws Ltd.
\nto his own enterprise, to his plan to smuggle stolen gold bullion
\nout of England in the form of souvenirs.<\/p>\n
A plan is hatched between the two. With loud talk between them
\non the Underground they broadcast among commuters the (false)
\nmessage that there is a large payroll left overnight at the Gee
\nGaws warehouse. During that night two robbers enter the premises
\nas hoped and on cue and Holland and Pendlebury are able to enlist
\ntwo more players by default -- practiced petty criminals, played
\nby Sid James and Alfie Bass. Then Mr. Holland sets to in hatching
\nhis clever plan. Suddenly he has news of a promotion to Foreign
\nExchange. How inconvenient. The moment has all but passed.
\nGalvanized, he swings into action, training his gang in the
\nseries of steps to make theirs the security van full of gold.<\/p>\n
On the day, the plan goes right, then wrong, then right again
\nand things go from bad to worse. Pendlebury is detained by police
\nfor questioning -- it was not planned. Holland, bound, gagged and
\nblindfolded (dressed up as a hostage) wanders away from the
\nwarehouse and topples into the river. He is rescued by two
\npolicemen.<\/p>\n
Despite the zigzag progress, they get the gold and the plan
\nunfolds to the point where Holland and Pendlebury can beam
\nproudly and parentally over their first gold Eiffel Tower, and as
\nthe camera moves in on them in ironic two-shot they croon, \"Our
\nfirst born\". They move to the foreground as the Sid James and
\nAlfie Bass characters drop away, saying they expect Holland and
\nPendlebury to give them their share when the deals are done
\nabroad, \"You mean you trust us?\" an incredulous pair of gentlemen
\nscoundrels ask their working class colleagues. To each other
\nHolland and Pendlebury turn, \"The world is ours\".<\/p>\n
Not quite. Impediments are yet to come. From a race against
\nthe elevator down the spiral staircase on the Eiffel Tower to a
\ncar chase through London streets with Pendlebury and Holland at
\nthe wheel of a stolen police car, issuing contradictory messages
\nover the radio, the Lavendar Hill Mob diminishes to its last
\nsurviving member. He manages to escape to South America (a few
\nyears ahead of Ronald Biggs!).<\/p>\n
Does crime pay? Look closely during the film's final framing
\ndevice in the restaurant in Rio.<\/p>\n
Passport to Pimlico continues this wonderfully batty tradition
\nof eccentric situation comedy, peppered with wit and slapstick.
\nLike Lavendar Hill it looks at an unthinkable act, outside the
\nlaw, and renders it harmless through comedy. In this film the
\npeople of the tiny London borough of Pimlico uncover treasure and
\naccredited deeds, hundreds of years old, that declare they are a
\npart of France, Burgundy in fact. Seems like a good idea when
\nLondon is three years out of World War II but there are still
\nendless restrictions in daily life and the city has been sweating
\nthrough a heat-wave summer. They decide to secede.<\/p>\n
The whimsy is sustained and the people cut themselves off,
\nbank the buried treasure and keep the pubs open well after hours.
\nPimlico can do it alone for a while, but soon survival becomes
\ndependent on donations of food that are either lobbed over the
\nperimeter boundary wire -- schoolboys' lunch packs -- or that
\nland from the sky by parachute.<\/p>\n
Within each of these films there is inserted a Gaumont-style
\ncinema newsreel that gets to the heart of things -- the real as
\nagainst the declared. In The Lavendar Hill Mob a newsreader's
\nvoice-over declares that the police are leaving \"no stone
\nunturned\" as the visuals show us policemen kicking rocks aside as
\nthey walk through an alleyway. An MP in Parliament declares that
\nmeasures have been taken to ensure that no gold leaves the
\ncountry over the image of a Frenchman nonchalantly unwrapping an
\nEiffel Tower souvenir in front of a customs officer who gives it
\na shrug, barely a glance, and a Ca va to let it pass.<\/p>\n
In Passport to Pimlico the newsreader announces that Pimlico's
\nprivy council is handing out policies while the image we see is
\nof a group of residents sitting in the kitchen, thumping the
\ntable with their fists. Each and every image contradicts the
\nauthority of the voice-over commentary.<\/p>\n
Both these films, and especially The Lavendar Hill Mob,
\nrepresent British comedy at its best. Fast-paced, witty and
\nwhimsical, with a dash of social realism, these examples of the
\nEaling oeuvre are a cheerfully clever diversion for a weekday
\nafternoon.<\/p>",
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