- Actors: Stanley Holloway, George Relph, Alastair Sim, Frederick Piper, Betty Warren
- Directors: Andrew Snell, Charles Crichton, Henry Cornelius
- Writers: T.E.B. Clarke
- Producers: Andrew Solomon, Avril MacRory, Brendan Hughes, Caroline Thomas
- Format: PAL
- Language French
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
- Number of discs: 4
- Classification: U
- Studio: Warner
- DVD Release Date: 28 April 2003
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00008N711
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 62,460 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
This second collection of Ealing Comedy, while not quite as important a reissue as the first box, is nonetheless essential viewing for all aficionados of classic English film. In Passport to Pimlico a group of Londoners demonstrate, paradoxically, their Englishness by eccentrically choosing the Burgundian citizenship granted them by a rediscovered medieval charter. Similarly, in The Titfield Thunderbolt neighbours outraged by the closing of their local branch line steal an antique locomotive from the museum and run their own railway. A similar sense of taking charge of your own life fills Hue and Cry as a group of boys, infuriated that crooks have been using their favourite comic to send messages, summon scores of others by radio to help them track down and capture the gang.
There are shared themes here, a shared sense of the importance of eccentricity and imagination to a healthy society as well as excellent ensemble acting from casts that include Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Sid James. The box is filled out with a television documentary about the history of Ealing Studios. It covers its early silent days, the golden age that produced the classic comedies and such important films as The Cruel Sea, its time as a BBC studio and its possible renaissance under new management.
On the DVD: Ealing Comedy presents the three films and the documentary in 1.33:1 (i.e., 4:3), and has excellent mono sound that does full justice to both dialogue and scores. The extra features include introductions to the four films in the first box set by such luminaries as Terry Gilliam and Martin Scorsese as well as DVD-ROM files of the original brochures for all seven films. --Roz Kaveney
Video Description
Hue & Cry
This film, the first "Ealing Comedy", features a strong cast including Alastair Sim and Jack Warner. The story centres round London’s East End of the 40's and a group of criminals who use a boy’s paper as a means of messages and information. This ploy is discovered by a group of East End boys who take exception to the crooks use of their favourite read! The memorable climax features the criminals being chased by thousands of young boys through the London Docklands.
This film, the first "Ealing Comedy", features a strong cast including Alastair Sim and Jack Warner. The story centres round London’s East End of the 40's and a group of criminals who use a boy’s paper as a means of messages and information. This ploy is discovered by a group of East End boys who take exception to the crooks use of their favourite read! The memorable climax features the criminals being chased by thousands of young boys through the London Docklands.
Audio: Mono, Screen Ratio: 1.33:1 Full Frame
Passport to Pimlico
A whimsical and charming British film, Passport to Pimlico is one of the finest examples of the classic Ealing comedies. An archaic document found in a bombsite reveals that the London district of Pimlico has for centuries technically been part of France. The local residents embrace their new found continental status, seeing it as a way to avoid the drabness, austerity and rationing of post-war England. The authorities do not, however, share their enthusiasm...
Academy Award and BAFTA nominated starring Stanley Holloway and Betty Warren.
Audio: Mono, Screen Ratio: 1.33:1 Full Frame
The Titfield Thunderbolt
Director Charles Crichton and writer Tibby Clarke team up again for the first Ealing comedy to be produced in Technicolor. When an antiquated railway line is threatened with closure, the villagers decide to run it themselves and enter into frenzied competition with the local bus route, with hilarious consequences. The defiance of authority by local inhabitants was a favourite topic in the 40's and 50's and embellishes the characteristic Ealing theme – 'small is beautiful and big is bad'. Stars Stanley Holloway and Sid James.
Audio: Mono, Screen Ratio: 1.33:1 Full Frame
Forever Ealing Bonus Disc:
* Forever Ealing Documentary (50 mins)
* Martin Scorsese introduces The Lavender Hill Mob
* Terry Gilliam introduces The Ladykillers
* Steven Frears introduces The Man In The White Suit
* John Landis introduces Kind Hearts & Coronets
* Theatrical Trailers for Passport to Pimlico & The Titfield Thunderbolt
* Theatrical Trailers for The Ladykillers, Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts & Coronets and The Man In The White Suit
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
This set is worth it for Passport to Pimlico alone- for me the greatest film of the Ealing output. Stanley Holloway is classic and perfect, Raymond Huntley at his stuffy best, Margaret Rutherford just brilliant, and then Betty Warren as Pembertons wife with the classic "it's just because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundian". The film can be (and has been) viewed at so many different levels- but ultimately it is total perfection.
Of the others- for me Hue and Cry and Titfield Thunderbolt aren't in the same superleague- but they are great nevertheless- and much preferable to most contemporary cinema in anycase.
I just wish they'd do more of these sets- there must be dozens of classic films (not just Ealing either!) that are aching to be released!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
This is a niced boxed set featuring 3 of Ealing's comedies:
Hue and Cry (1947) - One of the early Ealing comedies set in post-war London, so there's a lot of bomb sites and rubble! A young man (Harry Fowler) is looking for a job - a weekly children's comic (The Trump) comes his way and he begins to notice that some of the comic's contents are accurate (for example he sees a car in the comic that has the same registration number as a car he spots in the street). In checking up further he and some of his chums become convinced that the comic is being used by crooks to send coded messages to each other about potential robberies. The kids seek out The Trump's author (a wonderful cameo from Alastair Sim) to check whether his original stories have been changed. The action takes off from there! This is a lovely little film, with a good cast and a clever storyline.
Passport to Pimlico (1949) - Post-war London - a place of bomb sites, ration books, licensing laws and to cap it all, it's a sweltering summer. Kids playing on a bomb site accidentally set off an unexploded bomb, uncovering an ancient treasure that indicates that the area is part of Burgundy. The locals are quick to take advantage of the situation and create a ration-free state, but things start to get very complicated! A rather surreal, but inventive film which, in post-war Britain (still under rationing) would have been welcomed like a breath of fresh air. A great cast, including Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, and a young Charles Hawtrey. One of Ealing's most popular films, it drags a bit in parts. However, the story is irresistible.
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952) - This is one of my personal favourites from Ealing. The local railway line is threatened with closure (and replacement by a bus service). The village community decides to run the railway themselves, which causes the competing bus owners to engage in some underhand initiatives. This is the Britain of a bygone age, with gentle humour, steam trains, wonderful sunny British countryside and all in glorious colour! The casting is inspired, with lots of nice cameos (one of the best being Stanley Holloway as a boozy philanthropist who is encouraged to invest in the locally-run railway using the argument that he can have a licensed buffet car all day!). Good performances also from Hugh Griffith, John Gregson and Sid James. The enthusiasm of the local vicar for anything to do with steam trains is just wonderful to behold. Highly recommended!
Plus a bonus feature: Forever Ealing - A 49-minute documentary looking at the history of Ealing films. Includes interviews with Martin Scorsese, John Landis, Terry Gilliam and others, plus trailers for a number of Ealing films.
I highly recommend this boxed set.
Hue and Cry (1947) - One of the early Ealing comedies set in post-war London, so there's a lot of bomb sites and rubble! A young man (Harry Fowler) is looking for a job - a weekly children's comic (The Trump) comes his way and he begins to notice that some of the comic's contents are accurate (for example he sees a car in the comic that has the same registration number as a car he spots in the street). In checking up further he and some of his chums become convinced that the comic is being used by crooks to send coded messages to each other about potential robberies. The kids seek out The Trump's author (a wonderful cameo from Alastair Sim) to check whether his original stories have been changed. The action takes off from there! This is a lovely little film, with a good cast and a clever storyline.
Passport to Pimlico (1949) - Post-war London - a place of bomb sites, ration books, licensing laws and to cap it all, it's a sweltering summer. Kids playing on a bomb site accidentally set off an unexploded bomb, uncovering an ancient treasure that indicates that the area is part of Burgundy. The locals are quick to take advantage of the situation and create a ration-free state, but things start to get very complicated! A rather surreal, but inventive film which, in post-war Britain (still under rationing) would have been welcomed like a breath of fresh air. A great cast, including Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, and a young Charles Hawtrey. One of Ealing's most popular films, it drags a bit in parts. However, the story is irresistible.
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1952) - This is one of my personal favourites from Ealing. The local railway line is threatened with closure (and replacement by a bus service). The village community decides to run the railway themselves, which causes the competing bus owners to engage in some underhand initiatives. This is the Britain of a bygone age, with gentle humour, steam trains, wonderful sunny British countryside and all in glorious colour! The casting is inspired, with lots of nice cameos (one of the best being Stanley Holloway as a boozy philanthropist who is encouraged to invest in the locally-run railway using the argument that he can have a licensed buffet car all day!). Good performances also from Hugh Griffith, John Gregson and Sid James. The enthusiasm of the local vicar for anything to do with steam trains is just wonderful to behold. Highly recommended!
Plus a bonus feature: Forever Ealing - A 49-minute documentary looking at the history of Ealing films. Includes interviews with Martin Scorsese, John Landis, Terry Gilliam and others, plus trailers for a number of Ealing films.
I highly recommend this boxed set.
Amazon Verified Purchase
Being around half the age of many Ealing fans, I still love the original movies! Surely British cinema at its best. Just compare them to the endless stream of Carry On's.....Quite. There is none.
As for this collection, packaged as a true collector's item, unfolding like a puzzle, it was Hue & Cry that I was after. It is cited as the first Ealing "Comedy" but is also the least shown on TV and I'm not aware of it having been given away on the front of a Sunday broadsheet. In fact, I had not seen it until buying this boxset. It is a sort of cross between Angels With Dirty Faces and The Lavender Hill Mob as it features young tearaways, as well as a suitably sinister Alistair Sim. Plus some interesting just post-war location footage of a recovering London.
It is darker and more EastEnd crime and typically Ealing than, of say the comparative light froth of the Titfield Thunderbolt. The true classic included here, is of course Passport to Pimlico, which will need absolutely no introduction. It's often on commercial digital TV but cut up by adverts and has been issued by the Daily Mail.
The fourth disc is a documentary on the films and features extras. I haven't watched this one yet, though. I'd have preferred another feature instead, say The Magnet or Scott of the Antarctic. I have all the other major Ealings either on single DVDs or as parts of other collections like this.
As for this collection, packaged as a true collector's item, unfolding like a puzzle, it was Hue & Cry that I was after. It is cited as the first Ealing "Comedy" but is also the least shown on TV and I'm not aware of it having been given away on the front of a Sunday broadsheet. In fact, I had not seen it until buying this boxset. It is a sort of cross between Angels With Dirty Faces and The Lavender Hill Mob as it features young tearaways, as well as a suitably sinister Alistair Sim. Plus some interesting just post-war location footage of a recovering London.
It is darker and more EastEnd crime and typically Ealing than, of say the comparative light froth of the Titfield Thunderbolt. The true classic included here, is of course Passport to Pimlico, which will need absolutely no introduction. It's often on commercial digital TV but cut up by adverts and has been issued by the Daily Mail.
The fourth disc is a documentary on the films and features extras. I haven't watched this one yet, though. I'd have preferred another feature instead, say The Magnet or Scott of the Antarctic. I have all the other major Ealings either on single DVDs or as parts of other collections like this.
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