The Great Ealing Film Challenge 45: The Blue Lamp (1950)

There are so many existing associations with The Blue Lamp that it is almost impossible to watch it with a fresh eye: George Dixon’s life and death in film, then rebirth in the television hit Dixon of Dock Green; the menacing youthful swagger of Dirk Bogarde; British cinema’s delight in such ‘social problem’ films through the 1950s and early 60s; the underlying assumptions around youth as a problem, with tradition offered as the ‘obvious’ solution; and the assumption (often problematic) that all policemen are good and trustworthy.

Those elements and that reputation are here, obviously, but it would be wrong to allow them to blind us to what works so well about this film: like The Long Arm (1956) it is a police procedural done with great skill, yet also a film that isn’t afraid to explore the bleakness and violence of late 1940s youth. In many ways The Blue Lamp exists as a companion piece, or contemporary parallel, to Brighton Rock (1947): Tom Riley (Dirk Bogarde) contains the same combination of menace and guile as Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough). Here, Riley’s apparent descent into paranoia and guilt after killing PC George Dixon (Jack Warner) is laced with cunning (as he tries to distract the police) and anger (when he thinks he is betrayed by those closest to him).

The film opens with a quickly-cut car chase (with the camera alternately ahead of the car, behind the car, and from the car’s point-of-view) that sets a pace for the film that rarely lets up. We get a familiar story: traditional street copper George Dixon is near retirement, but remains on the beat, showing new PC Andy Mitchell (Jimmy Hanley) the ropes. A parallel storyline involving young crooks Riley and Spud (Patric Doonan), and Riley’s girlfriend Diana Lewis (Peggy Lee), collides with the main narrative in murderous fashion when Riley shoots Dixon during a cinema robbery. As the police force mobilises to track Dixon’s killer (the procedural is in full swing here: fingerprints are taken, the murder scene is photographed, clues are traced and followed up by CID), the film builds to a final car chase (a fast-paced, location heavy, visual echo of its opening scenes) and then a final hunt through White City Stadium where local criminals help the police capture Riley.

Dixon is the archetypal good cop: he knows everyone on his beat, and even the petty criminals and illegal traders seem to like him. Indeed, most of the policemen we see are presented as nice blokes who’d rather be sitting together in the canteen practicing in their male voice choir and listening to Dixon’s made up songs. Ealing has been accused of favouring male camaraderie over female (or, as in films like The Cruel Sea (1953), of trying to avoid women wherever possible) and many familiar male faces crop up in the police ranks, including PC Hughes (Meredith Edwards) and Inspector Cherry (Bernard Lee). Each policeman gets a minor character trait – astronomy, football pools, gardening, poetry – but is largely defined by their job, and their commitment to it. Of course, this blog has attempted to challenge and open up the debate around gender in Ealing – Turned Out Nice Again (1942), Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945) and The Feminine Touch (1956) are obvious examples here – but it remains true that The Blue Lamp offers limited scope for female roles. Although women are seen working within the police station, they are rarely the centre of attention and largely answer phones. Equally, Mrs Dixon (Gladys Henson) may verbally spar with her husband, but she remains visually restricted to domestic duties and interests; while Diana may run away from home, she runs straight into the arms of the violent and jealous Riley.

Visually, the place of drama-documentary within Ealing’s aesthetic is secure: the film relies on location-based imagery (including bombed out streets and areas) such as the montage that opens the film, newspaper headlines are used to frame the social ‘problem,’ and there is a recurring male voiceover that asks questions like ‘What protection has the man in the street against the armed threat?’ Yet while the film may rely on these visual cues, it can also be playful with composition, particularly around the younger characters: a shot from above Peggy Lee’s head as she powders her face (an angle that stresses the obvious ‘clue’ of her compact); Bogarde in the foreground of the picture as he fills the chambers of a gun; framing an argument between Riley and Spud with Bogarde and Doonan in the background, in focus, with Diane, out of focus, dominating the left of screen; or Bogarde’s haunted face as he shaves in front of a mirror. The film may ultimately side with Dixon and tradition, but it has great fun dramatising and presenting its younger criminal characters.

And there is throughout a sense that the film enjoys its darker, criminal side a little more than it should – Dixon is comfortable and safe, but Riley gets all the attention-grabbing scenes; Dixon likes to potter in his garden, Riley hangs out in coffee bars; Dixon favours a stern word, Riley gets his hands on a gun; and, ultimately, Warner is a solid screen presence, Bogarde is a compelling one.

The Blue Lamp deserves the reputations and associations I listed above, but it shouldn’t be reduced to simple ideas of good and bad, or tradition triumphing over youth ‘problems’. There is light and dark throughout the film, and that might be its most interesting legacy.

Next time, Tommy Trinder takes on a German destroyer in Sailors Three (1940)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 44: The Captive Heart (1946)

While there are more romantic films in Ealing’s back catalogue, this one – with its love letters flying back and forth between British prisoners-of-war held in a German camp and the British women patiently waiting for news on the homefront – felt apt for Valentine’s Day, and offers a nice (if not overly challenging) mix of drama, comedy, unrequited love and hopelessly unbelievable characterisation. But we’ll come back to that last point later...

At first, this appears to be a traditional Ealing / British war movie. The captured soldiers from Dunkirk and elsewhere are marched across Europe to a POW camp. If there was a British war film bingo card, this film would sweep the board: Welsh, Scottish, cockney, working class, posh, crook, and extra points for the Czech soldier who’s taken on another man’s identity. As they march, we get brief flashbacks to their lives pre-war, and the women they were involved with: Ted Horsfall (Jack Warner) and Evans (Mervyn Johns) run a decorating business and are happily married, although Evans and wife Dilys (Rachel Thomas) are struggling to have a child; Stephen Harley (Derek Bond) is in love with Caroline (Jane Barrett), who leaves her current boyfriend Robert Marsden (Robert Wyndham) for him; Lennox (Gordon Jackson) says goodbye to Elspeth (Margot Fitzsimons) as his train pulls away... At one point, it feels like this could be the whole film – an elaborate portmanteau of flashbacks and wartime love affairs like Dead of Night (1945) or Train of Events (1949) – but then the men arrive at the POW camp, and that becomes the focus of the narrative. Interspersed through, however, is the story of the women who were left behind – they aren’t just a series of flashbacks, we see a parallel narrative about their lives, worries and interests during wartime.

While the film has a broad cross-section of British soldiers, it is most interested in Geoffrey Mitchell (Michael Redgrave) – or, rather, Captain Karel Hasek, the Czech soldier on the run who takes Mitchell’s identity from his dead body. The film toys briefly with the mystery of who Mitchell really is – the men are suspicious when he speaks German and appears interested in their escape plans – but that isn’t the heart of the film. Instead, it is the arrival of the first letters and packages from home and the men’s interactions with their wives and girlfriends that reveals the film’s main interest: Hasek’s need to pretend to be Mitchell for Mitchell’s wife Celia (Rachel Kempson) and to avoid the suspicion of Gestapo officer Forster (Karel Stepanek), who recognises Hasek from a Czech concentration camp. It is a shame then that Redgrave is a blank slate throughout: he has the good looks but his performance is largely one-note, controlled and emotionless. While this is suitable for the initial set-up, the character necessarily has to become more open and emotional, particularly for the (unsatisfying) final scenes (which, again, more of in a moment).

The drama and camaraderie of the POW camp is well-played, but by 1946 Ealing was an old hand at this kind of consensus-building wartime bonding structure. There are minor dramas – Lennox loses his sight and calls off his engagement, Evans learns of the death of his wife during childbirth, the men attempt to get Hasek back to Britain – which are ably supported by more comic turns from reliable stalwarts like Basil Radford (as the wonderfully named Major Ossy Dalrymple), who cheerfully describes himself as ‘a social parasite... the sort we’re fighting to get rid of’ (there are echoes of Sir George Gedney (A.E. Matthews) here, the landed gentry character in They Came to a City; although Dalrymple doesn’t hate his fellow man, actively joins in with camp activities, and is self-aware about his nature, it is also clear he would prefer to be alone with his horses). The women of the film aren’t quite as varied as the POWs, and we spend less time with them. The bulk of that time is given to the middle/upper class Celia and Caroline, with only brief scenes with Dilys and Elspeth. Caroline is the most interesting here, if only because she takes the initiative with both the men in her life (she drops Robert, chooses Stephen, and then announces they have to get married – with the overt subtext, particularly for an Ealing film, of wanting to have sex before he is called up).

Given my usual preference to look beyond narrative and received wisdom on these films, I once again found myself drawn to the cinematography: and once again, I find director of photography Douglas Slocombe’s name in the credits. It’s not that the film is obviously showy or spectacular, but there are some strong visual choices made throughout: most noticeably, the decision for landscape shots to be dominated by the sky. From the first images, where lines of POWs walk horizontally across the image, the sky takes up eighty per cent of the screen, often reducing the men to a mass of interchangeable bodies, but also mocking their captivity. The sky is wide, open, and free: all things the characters cannot be. This emphasis on the scale of the natural world continues in longer shots in the camp itself, including shots where Mervyn Johns and Michael Redgrave walk away from the camera, almost shrinking in the image, dominated by their surroundings. The film also features subtle camerawork that often moves around the room and characters, calling in at the different stories and emotions: one of the strongest examples comes when Mitchell/Hasek reads Celia’s letter aloud, and the camera circles round to catch each man’s face, as they react to a description of life back home. It is a subtle moment, but it plays to the power of silent performance from all the actors.

It is also a moment that, I think, Charles Barr would claim supports the film’s celebration of the camps as ‘little England.’ Yet I am unsure the film is that clear-cut: the moments where Jack Warner leads everyone in ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ to drown out a German anthem stresses this, but there are other times where the unease and uncertainties of these men come to the fore, and they become individual pieces of England as much as a celebration of a cohesive little England. The camps are described as ‘a little piece of England’ but the film is equally interested in being able to ‘pass’ for English – not just the ‘fake’ Mitchell, but also the camp Kommandant, who is practising his English with Dalrymple. The sense here is that English-ness is something that can be learned, it isn’t intrinsic or natural – perhaps most clearly stated in Hasek’s ability to ‘become’ Mitchell and win Celia, an event that is celebrated with a fireworks display at the end of the film.

But, that ending... it requires a huge suspension of disbelief, and one the film fails to sell to the audience (or to this audience at least). Celia starts as an interesting character – coming out of an unhappy marriage, accepting her husband has left her, bringing up their children on her own – but the demands of the plot mean that her actions become increasingly unlikely. The arrival of letters from her husband – actually written by another man (the difference in handwriting explained away by Hasek using his left hand) and presenting a completely different character and opinion on life – cause her to fall in love with him again. When she hears her husband is to be repatriated, she rushes to the docks (and rushes past Hasek: Redgrave’s stoic performance serves him well here, showing Hasek’s realisation that Celia doesn’t know him); when Hasek tells her about his deception, she visibly deflates; yet a few months later, as victory in Europe is celebrated, she’s ecstatic that Hasek has got back in touch, and appears to have fallen in love with him.

While in one sense it is understandable why the narrative ends like this – everyone likes a happy ending, it stresses the inevitable heterosexual pairing-off that happens in many films – but for me it strikes a false note, and one that actually sours the other relationships of the returning POWs (Lennox and Elspeth, Stephen and Caroline, and Ted and his wife are all reunited; while Evans meets his daughter). While all the relationships were tested by miscommunication or crossed lines, Hasek and Celia never felt anything more than an artificial narrative device. It is an unconvincing end that mars an otherwise solid film.

Next time, Dirk Bogarde takes on the long arm of the law in The Blue Lamp (1950)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 43: My Learned Friend (1943)

The last film of Will Hay’s career (although not the last time we’ll see Hay on this challenge, with The Goose Steps Out (1942) and The Big Blockade (1942) still to come), this is a fantastic little black comedy-thriller that speeds through its plot with a series of slapstick routines, strong performances, a great final sequence on the clock face of Big Ben, and a film-stealing turn from Ealing stalwart Mervyn Johns, who pushes the balance of homicidal and hysterical seen in his The Next of Kin (1942) character to darkly comic extremes.

The film re-teams Hay and Claude Hulbert (last seen together in 1941s The Ghost of St. Michael’s), here playing seedy but canny conman (and ex-lawyer) William Finch (Hay) and hopelessly inept lawyer Babbington (Hulbert). Babbington’s eager and naive persona is established by an early scene where he plays with toy cars on the floor of chambers, and he soon fails to successfully prosecute Finch for his latest money-grabbing scheme. The two team up, however, when ex-con psychopath Arthur Grimshaw (Mervyn Johns) bumps into them in a pub and reveals he is going to kill the six people responsible for incarcerating him. These ‘six little dramas of retribution’ will end with Finch, but the first five names are unknown. The film becomes a race against time, as Finch and Babbington try to track down the other names (judges, witnesses, medical experts from the trial), and stop Grimshaw’s murderous scheme.

The narrative is not overly original, but one beautiful addition pushes it beyond the ordinary: Grimshaw keeps popping up to mock and help Finch and Babbington, leaving riddles and clues for them to decipher, and point them in the right direction. In the wrong hands, that role could have fallen flat, but Johns is exceptional, pitching his performance perfectly, adding in demented Peter Lorre-esque twitches, all breathy, slow-spoken at certain points, occasionally eager and giggling, and then matter-of-face and logical at others. Having seen him play evil (The Next of Kin), pent up (Pink String and Sealing Wax, 1945) and ‘average man’ (San Demetrio, London, 1943), it is fun to see him let rip with a character that is a force of black comic energy, stopping inches short of winking at the camera every time he appears (and there are a couple of half-glances at camera, particularly when he takes off a fake moustache after the second murder, that drifts closest to that edge). Grimshaw describes himself as an artist at one point, and it is to Johns’ credit that this character is not the one-note madman he could have been. While Hay and Hulbert have the bulk of the obviously comic business, it is Johns’ manic and murderous glint that is at the film’s heart.

Outside of the central performances, the film is as straightforward as other Ealing comedies, whether they starred Formby, Trinder or Hay. Structured around set pieces, most in one or two simple stage sets (offices, corridors, bars: there are only about three location shots in the whole film), we see Finch and Babbington fail to stop Grimshaw from murdering ‘Safety’ Wilson (Charles Victor), protect the wrong girl (Maudie Edwards), inadvertently help kill Dr. Scudamore (G.H. Mulcaster), and then try to prevent the bombing of the House of Lords. There are some moments where the broader comedy threatens to derail the whole project: an extended sequence in a theatre where ‘Aladdin’ is being performed (and where Finch and Babbington – in borrowed costumes – wreak havoc on the theatrical performance), or one among psychiatric patients (including big game hunter Colonel Chudleigh (Lloyd Pearson) and practical joker Mr Ferris (Ernest Thesiger), but the film maintains a brisk pace throughout, so that such moments are quickly discarded.

The final sequence, which takes place on two elaborate sets (the inner workings of Big Ben, with over sized cogs and wheels; and the external clock-face itself), is a bravura piece of slapstick, chase scene, performance, and tensely edited drama that deserves to be better known within British cinema. The influence of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923) is obvious, but there are also echoes of Hitchcock in the placing of a final dramatic sequence on such a well-known national landmark. True, this is done for comic effect, but the use of the clock-face as a surface to scramble over, hang from, and protect, is particularly strong here.

George Perry has noted the more callous and cynical tone of this film, and both he and Charles Barr have suggested a tempting link between this film and Ealing’s more famous multiple-murder spree, 1949s Kind Hearts and Coronets (both co-written by John Dighton). Yet while both tend to see this as a lesser run-through of similar material, that tends to ignore the strengths of this film, strengths that deserve to be more central to discussions of the darker comic side of Ealing Studios.

Next time, a Valentine's Day treat (?) as we explore The Captive Heart (1946)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 42: Who Done It? (1956)

After watching this film, I made a throwaway comment on Facebook that it was 81 minutes of my life that I wouldn’t get back. While that was may have been an overly harsh assessment of this Benny Hill-starring comedy – and one that Steve Chibnall called me on, noting that any film featuring Belinda Lee tearing telephone directories in half can’t be all bad – this falls short of revitalising Ealing Studios’ comic heritage in the mid-1950s, but offers some useful links back to the star-driven humour seen in its 1930s and 40s films.

It is soon clear, however, that Benny Hill is no Tommy Trinder, George Formby or Will Hay.

Hill plays Hugo Dill, a crime-thriller-loving actor who, after winning a writing competition (£100 and a bloodhound), sets up his own detective agency. With the occasionally-willing help of actress Frankie Mayne (Belinda Lee), Hugo inadvertently gets involved in a spy ring’s plans to smuggle Professor Stumpf (Denis Shaw) and his weather-changing invention out of Britain to Uralia. The spy chief Zacco (David Kossoff) hires Hugo to impersonate the professor, but Hugo’s bumbling sends the plans into disarray, leading to an extended chase sequence through a radio show at Earls Court and, finally, into the centre of a stock car race.

As a child of the 1970s, my memory of Benny Hill is likely the one that dominates: a ruddy-faced older and chubby television personality permanently chasing scantily-clad women in sped-up footage to the same repetitive piece of music. In that sense at least, this film is a partial revelation, because his younger persona is given a (limited) chance to act – his voice is deeper and stronger than my (unreliable) memory of the later television appearances, and his physical acting (particularly in some of the disguises he adopts) is largely strong. It is a shame that he is playing that stalwart of the Ealing star-driven comedies, the innocent naïf (innocent in the larger world, as well as sexually), rather than a role that would have stretched his acting in some way. It is also a shame that the film tends to fall back on reliable clichés – Hugo trying to be a hard-boiled American detective, cross-dressing as a wronged woman with strangled high-pitched voice – clichés that may play to Hill’s own limitations or skills, but ones that do little to enliven the comedy here.

Lee’s character is frustratingly underused: preternaturally strong (ripping up telephone directories, lifting furniture with one hand), she pretends to be weak around men so they won’t be put off by her strength. A strong woman hiding her power would be fertile comic ground for most films, but Lee is largely reduced to running around after Hill and occasionally punching / throwing the Uralian spies out of windows (which is a useful trick, given how inept Hugo is). She also falls in with actresses such as Googie Withers, Phyllis Calvert, Diana Decker and Patricia Kirkwood, as the underdeveloped female role who falls (inexplicably) in love with their comic star, be it George Formby, Tommy Trinder or Benny Hill. While this is an obvious narrative development that goes well beyond Ealing’s films, it remains problematic when (as here) the stars have no obvious chemistry.

The highlight of the film is a personal one that has little to do with the actual narrative or performances, but does relate to the power of Ealing’s tendency for location filming. It is rare to see an Ealing Studios film that is actually filmed on the streets of Ealing – obviously any set-based work was filmed within the walls of Ealing Studios, but location work ranged throughout London, depending on requirements. Here, for the first time, I spotted an actual Ealing location – Pitshanger Manor and Walpole Park (which are next to the Studios themselves), are used for the scene where the Professor demonstrates his weather controlling invention. As Sir Walter (Ernest Thesiger) greets the Professor (Hill, in disguise), they walk past the entrance to Pitshanger Manor, then into the Park itself, where the demonstration takes place. Having lived in Ealing for ten years, and regularly walked past that spot, it was perhaps the moment where I was most interested in, and engaged by, the film.

For the rest, I can see the potential appeal – the use of set pieces, mistaken identity, physical slapstick and chase sequences – but, almost halfway through this Ealing challenge, they are too reminiscent of earlier (and better) star-driven Ealing comedies. The star turn here is never as strong as it needed to be, with Hill an unconvincing figure to build this thin narrative around. The film’s struggle to create its own identity (yet hark back to earlier comedies) is underlined by the inclusion of a pair of snooty, patronising characters who dismiss the professor’s invention – roles that, fifteen years previously, would have been perfect for a Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne cameo, yet have little impact here.

Next time, we stick with comedy, but with a darker tone, in My Learned Friend (1943)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 41: Dunkirk (1958)

Ealing’s penultimate film (and one of its longest, at 130 minutes) is a return to the wartime spirit that energised much of the studio’s 1940s output. Unlike the more propagandist notes struck in a range of films, from The Big Blockade (1942) and San Demetrio, London (1943) to The Ghost of St Michaels (1941) and The Foreman Went to France (1942), this is a retrospective look at the early period of the Second World War rather than one mired in contemporary uncertainty. While it is not entirely successful – the film does drag in places, much of the dialogue (particularly that given to Bernard Lee) is declamatory and expositional, while some of the performances feel perfunctory – it is hardly the valorisation of the British army that Balcon set out to make. Indeed, its dramatisation of the horrors of Dunkirk is arguably more effective than the more recent attempt in Atonement (2007), in part because of the length of time the film spends in that location, and its use of widescreen composition to sell the vast numbers stranded there.

It still feels strange to see an Ealing film that opens with the roars of the MGM lion – it is also an ‘Ealing Film’ rather than ‘Ealing Studios’ because of the move away from its traditional home in Ealing (a studio taken over by the BBC). It feels like a partial colonisation of Michael Balcon’s claim that Ealing films existed to project Britishness, if that Britishness was actually being bankrolled by an American studio. As Sue Harper and Vincent Porter have noted, MGM hoped to make money from the deal, not revitalise the flagging fortunes of Balcon, Ealing or British film culture more widely. (Harper & Porter 2003, 69) While they also describe this film as ‘emotionally frozen,’ I can’t help thinking that’s an unfair assessment of what can be an impressive piece of filmmaking.

There are moments where the film feels creatively powerful and distinct: montage sequences at the beginning (clips from contemporary newsreels being ‘watched’ by members of the British Expeditionary Forces, including Corporal ‘Tubby’ Bins (John Mills); a compilation of images and scenes that narrate the German advance over a Flanagan and Allen music hall song), an impressive use of widescreen throughout, and a strong soundtrack. The use of widescreen by director of photography Paul Beeson creates often inspired framing and composition – the lines of soldier wading out into the sea off Dunkirk beach stretches the full length of the vertical rectangle of the screen; there are sweeping vistas of the French and Belgian landscapes with refugees fleeing the German advance (and, later, being mown by Luftwaffe strafing); and an aerial attack on a British position features a series of explosions moving left to right across the screen (in many ways reminiscent of similar scenes in Apocalypse Now). Certain aspects of the set design also utilise the wider screen: for example, the cavernous sets that represent the Ministry of Information. Yet this can also work to the film’s disadvantage, when a shot in the local pub frequented by journalist Charles Foreman (Bernard Lee) and businessman John Holden (Richard Attenborough) casts them adrift in an unfeasibly large lounge bar.

So, the film features some stylistically powerful images and knows how to construct suitably tense sequences: the chaos on the Dunkirk beach as the Germans attack (featuring some nice mobile camera work through the dunes), an attack by a German patrol on Bins’ small group of stragglers in a farmyard, and several aerial bombardments. While some of that visual work sits alongside elements of the emotional restraint that Harper & Porter refer to, there are also scenes of men breaking down, arguing, sending others to their death, confronting their fears. Given the subject matter, and the fact the film spends around half its running time stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, it is perhaps not surprising that its vision of the British armed forces is more nuanced than the requisite stiff upper lip. With the benefit of hindsight, the film uses the figure of Foreman to criticise figures in the Admiralty, Ministry and government, for not being better prepared for a war with Germany. Yet this work is also clumsily presented – Lee is almost fatally lumbered with long exposition and enlightened opinion to deliver, so much so that it is almost a relief when he dies on the Dunkirk beach.

But it is not all retrospective ‘if only’: Holden is presented as an ordinary man who doesn’t believe he has a role to play in the war, and takes openly of the ‘phoney war.’ While the film narrative redresses his earlier opinion (and seeming cowardice) by having him sail his small boat to Dunkirk to rescue stranded soldiers (including Mills’ Bins and his men), it is made clear that Holden’s opinion is by no means an isolated one. Yet the main difficulty with Holden as a character is that the reasoning behind his actions is never entirely clear, driven by self-interest, guilt and peer pressure in varying degrees: the fact he is supposed to be an older, comfortable man is also undercut slightly by the obviously youthful Attenborough in a fake moustache and glasses. Of course, by the close, Horden is a hero of Dunkirk, working alongside Bins in a new spirit of togetherness: as the final voiceover notes, “no longer were there fighting men and civilians... A nation had been made whole.”

Of course, women are not really mentioned in that statement, particularly as the civilians pictured are the male boat owners, not the wives waiting at home. Balcon famously demanded that female roles were reduced in this film, to allow the focus to be on the fighting men: a decision that means only two women are featured (not counting the bathing beauties in one of the newsreel clips, and the mute French and Belgian women among the refugees). These women – Diana (Maxine Audley) and Grace (Patricia Plunkett) – are, respectively, the wives of Foreman and Holden. Their roles are diametrically opposed however, in that Diana is calm and supportive, while Grace is shrill and demanding, a new mother who demands that Holden never leaves her and the baby. This moment, when Holden is asked to make his promise, appears to be the catalyst that changes Holden from a neutral observer out for his own gain down the path towards cooperation and togetherness. And because he is ‘made whole’ by Dunkirk and interaction with the fighting men, the film apparently feels no need to show us his family again.

As for ‘Tubby’ Bins, the film stresses a couple of times that it the knowledge of his wife back home that drives his desire to return to Britain, but we learn very little else about Bins’ motivations – perhaps representative of Balcon’s desire to show the British in a strong and dignified way. However, that argument falls down again through the behaviour of Bins’ patrol (he reluctantly takes over when the ranking officer is killed), who at one point refuse to obey him (‘they’ve gone yellow’), and almost mutiny when he is forced to leave a wounded man behind to be captured. Mills’ performance also fuels the more emotional side of Bins’ – a face perpetually caught between youthful vigour and world weary ennui, expressive even when his dialogue and character isn’t. His quest is a small odyssey, dragging the remains of his unit through the countryside, aiming for home and reaching Dunkirk.

For all that Balcon wanted to show the British army in a good light, the film doesn’t pull its punches: the higher officer class are shown to be largely ineffective, the Ministry of Information is a faceless organisation that won’t reveal pertinent information, the Navy pull ships away from the evacuation (although a stroppy Vice Admiral Ramsay – Nicholas Hannen – manages to get them back for one final attempt). Yes, the ordinary soldier is valorised, but they are not simply faceless and undifferentiated: in the chaos of the Dunkirk beaches, men turn to God and drink, some panic and want to give up, others debate what should happen next. Most often, while the film wants to praise togetherness, it is actually individual action that saves the day – officers sacrificing themselves, Bins’ determination, and Foreman’s guilting of Holden into action.

As for the Germans, they are rarely seen, but more often heard. One of the strengths of the film is its soundtrack: the German guns, planes and bombs are the most dominant noises throughout the film. The harsh bark of machine gun fire, the low drone of unseen Luftwaffe above, the thunder of explosions – these are the face of the enemy throughout Dunkirk. German soldiers are seen, but it is the sense of the might of an unseen force powering through France and Belgium that the film most effectively dramatises.

Overall, then, this late Ealing effort has issues, but contains some fascinating stylistic and narrative ideas that make it worth viewing.

Next time, from the tragedy of war to the comedy of Benny Hill in Who Done It? (1956)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 40: Let George Do It (1940)

Way back at film 10 on this challenge (Trouble Brewing) I made the comment that it felt like ‘a live action Wallace & Gromit’ film with ‘action, inane comedy, fun slapstick, and unlikely romantic couplings.’ If that was true of the earlier film, it is doubly true of Let George Do It which features a comic bakery sequence which wouldn’t feel out of place in A Close Shave or A Matter of Loaf and Death. Something about the innocuous and clumsy heroics of Formby’s character, notably the visual gags and slapstick, calls to mind those later British animated heroes – likely because Nic Park knows his cinema history and likes a bit of Formby.

This film may be more famous as “the one where George Formby punches Hitler”, but that reputation arguably conceals a more complex narrative than Come on George, while also revisiting most of the basic concepts seen in Formby’s Ealing films to date: mistaken identity, unconvincing romantic couple, ukulele numbers, and broad slapstick. Here, Formby is George Hepplewhite, a ukulele player in variety act the Dinki-Doo’s, who is mistaken for a British spy (posing as a ukulele player) en route to Norway to uncover a spy ring responsible for passing on convoy information to German U boats. In Bergen, Formby meets up with band leader and Nazi agent Mendez (Garry Marsh), his assistant Slim Selwyn (Romney Brent), and receptionist-cum-undercover British agent Mary Wilson (Phyllis Calvert). Formby agrees to help the war effort, mainly to impress Mary (and his mum), finds the key to decode the secret messages (Morse code hidden in radio broadcasts of the band’s performances) and thwarts Mendez’ plans.

While the wartime premise of later Will Hay comedy The Ghost of St Michael’s (1941) felt forced, here it is integral to the narrative, the characters and the setting of Bergen ‘before the war spread.’ That is most obvious in the infamous dream sequence: having been drugged, and dumped back in his hotel room, George machine guns Mendez and Selwyn, only to reveal swastikas on their underwear; takes off in a one-man barrage balloon for Berlin, and ends up thumping Hitler in the face. It is highly unusual, not so much for the propaganda values (everyone from Batman and Donald Duck to Charlie Chaplin were lining up to fictionally take on Hitler), as for the place of dream sequences in Ealing films. Given the studio’s reputation lies in documentary-realism, few of its films feature anything that could be regarded as fantasy, and dream sequences are particularly infrequent (Dead of Night and The Love Lottery are the most obvious examples here), so to find one in a Formby film is unusual, particularly given the film sticks to the familiar structure and content elsewhere.

The film does feel different in other areas: the cinematography departs from the high key, well-lit approach seen in other Formby films to one comfortable with darker tones, and starker use of lighting. Several of the musical sequences feature spotlights on a dancer, with mobile spotlights following her, and leaving the rest of the room in darkness; while the dock-set scenes of blackout conditions are full of dense shadows and sharp angles of light – a lighting technique that plays into the comic fun the film has with identifying characters by torchlight, and Formby and others grabbing the wrong hands in the dark. Alongside more obvious visual techniques, the use of soundtrack is particularly strong: the music parallels elements of the narrative from the opening titles, with little bursts of morse code worked into the score (which recurs later in the band sequences). Formby’s musical numbers are also worked into a more traditional setting of a hotel band performing at a Bergen hotel.

This sense of pushing beyond existing Formby work does not mean abandoning what makes these films work: Formby’s physical antics. Those are most clearly demonstrated in the bakery sequence mentioned above. Continuing on from a scene where George was searching Mendez’ room (and hiding from Mendez), a camera with images of the secret key falls out of Mendez’s window. Following it, George gets an electric shock from overhead wires, crashes into a bakery and tries to grab the camera: it, and George, move from room to room through the bakery, falling into a vat of flour, being doused with water, mixed by a huge machine, chopped up, dumped onto a conveyor belt, thrust into tins, and put into an oven. While not all of these happen to George, the very mechanical, clockwork nature of the process becomes comical – while not as perfectly timed as the Chaplin routine in Modern Times (or, indeed, the Wallace & Gromit films that it obviously inspired), this is pure Formby physical comedy, and it remains the film’s comic highpoint, well ahead of Fuhrer-punching.

Of course, Formby’s other tics also come out: the character is sexually inexperienced, awkward around women, but somehow the focus of romantic attention. When Iris (Coral Browne) attempts to seduce him, Formby reacts like a little kid, rolling around on the bed, and his interest in Mary appears to be closely related to his desire to impress his mother. While the films only flirt with realism, the idea that an undercover British agent would fall for Formby’s foolishness and risk endangering her cover... well, it is another example of a female character acting uncharacteristically in these films, but by no means the first. It is also noticeable that apart from Calvert’s Mary, the only other speaking parts for women are the unidentified wife of Oscar (Bernard Lee), Iris, and a hotel receptionist. That said, Mary is at least professional and intelligent, even if George has to single-handedly rescue her at the end.

So, with strong physical comedy, interesting creative elements, that dream sequence, and the usual mix of Formby elements, this ranks alongside Trouble Brewing as one of the stronger Ealing Formby films, but probably fails to top Turned Out Nice Again. And perhaps one of the more curious elements the film has to offer is a brief flirtation with what we would now describe as intertextuality (or world building): an advertising bill for ‘Yellow Ochre’ at the Pier Theatre on a pillar in the dock’s waiting room – the play that was at the centre of the recently released Ealing film, Return to Yesterday (1940).

Next time, we bid adieu to Formby, but remain at war, in Dunkirk (1958)...

The Great Ealing Film Challenge 39: Whisky Galore! (1949)

Apologies to those expecting the final George Formby film Let George Do It (1940), but that has been briefly postponed so that the blog can celebrate Burns Night with an appropriate Scotland-centric selection. So, with a wee dram in hand (Singleton 12 year old), let me introduce you to one of Ealing’s most well-known and well-loved comedies. 

This is the Ealing film I probably know best, although it is a close tie with Passport to Pimlico (1949) (and, I suppose Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), but that’s because I watched it several times so as to write a decent article on it!). For a film that at one stage appeared to be going so wrong – first time producer Monja Danischewsky (Ealing publicist turned writer and producer) and first time director Alexander Mackendrick, stuck on the island of Barra with a film crew, bad weather, expensive sets, and expenses that would eventually spiral £20,000 over budget – the completed product is almost perfect, a great balance of character work, strong scripting (from Compton Mackenzie’s novel), and solid filmmaking. 

For those that don’t know the plot (famously based on a real event, when the S.S. Politician was wrecked off the island of Eriskay), the islanders of Scottish island Todday are mourning the lack of whisky on their island. With no fresh delivery in sight, the island is at a low ebb; not helped by the antics of Englishman Captain Waggett (the estimable Basil Radford, never more flustered or angrily aggrieved than here), the puffed up martinet head of the Home Guard, who is there to train the locals to fend off a (highly unlikely) German invasion. When a cargo ship, the S.S. Cabinet Minister, runs aground in foggy weather, the islanders are delighted to hear she was carrying 50,000 crates of whisky. After a painful pause to acknowledge the Sabbath, the islanders rush out to sea, grab as much whisky as they can before the ship sinks... but barely have time for a suitable celebration before they have to hide it again as Waggett brings the Excisemen, led by Mr Farquharson (Henry Mollison), to search the island.  

The story is beautifully structured throughout, building up pace at key moments (such as the small boat-led assault on the stricken ship, or the frenetic hiding of whisky when the Excise comes calling – a textbook exercise in visual montage and storytelling), finding time for little character portraits along the way (Old Hector – James Anderson – who takes to his bed when the whisky runs out; The Biffer – Morland Graham – and his childish eagerness to loot the ship; Angus McCormac – Duncan Macrae – downing bottles of whisky to hide them from his superiors), but also presenting great moments that build through narrative repetition, most notably the presentation of the Home Guard’s tactics. In this early scene, the point seems to be presenting Waggett’s stuffy English by-the-books attitude, and an assumed ineptitude or laziness among the locals: yet later, when the Home Guard roar into action (to prevent Waggett taking the whisky), roadblocks spring into place, sentry points are manned, and barbed wire is flung across roads. That this is all done to frustrate and delay Waggett is simply a beautiful narrative juxtaposition. The film also uses potential splits within the island community for humorous purposes, as Waggett is given directions to the whisky stash by the unhappy pub landlord, who knows his takings will be down now the illicit spirit has arrived. 

(the film was retitled Tight Little Island for its U.S. release)

Performances are strong throughout: the grouchiest of the islanders, Joseph Macroon, is played with suitably sly grumpiness by Wylie Watson; Gordon Jackson is a believably fresh-faced and innocent mummy’s boy (who, in some of the film’s funniest scenes, finally gets away from his overbearing mother), and his beau, Catriona (Gabrielle Blunt) is a stronger female presence than main star Joan Greenwood (who, despite being second on the bill, is largely stuck in an unlikely romance plot that is tangential to the main story). 

Mackendrick and Gerald Gibb’s filming style is also strong throughout, with mostly convincing day-for-night filming, and suitable use of both the stark and harsh moorland and the softer, beaches of the island – there is a hint of the documentary realism the studio is known, and the extensive use of location filming really sells the distant, otherworldly nature of the whisky-soaked island. The emphasis on the ocean is omnipresent as well – not only a physical presence (as in the scenes of the great whisky rescue) but a barrier between the islanders and the ‘real’ world, which outsiders have to cross.

Given all this, then, the film’s ending is a partial let-down. The victory of the islanders is secured: the Excise leave, Waggett is beaten, the romantic couples are married and there are stocks of whisky everywhere. Yet, as George Perry notes, an unhappy ending was added for the American market, where temperance ruled over happy alcoholic fun – so, a brief coda shows the islanders miserable again, having drunk all the whisky and living ‘unhappily ever after.’ The only people on the island who remain happy are Peggy (Greenwood) and Sergeant Odd (Bruce Seton), because they are teetotal. The final line ‘And if that isn’t a moral story, what is?’ flies in the face of the fun and gaiety seen in association with whisky throughout the film, and (to be honest) is best ignored. Stop the film 30 seconds earlier and it feels like a much more coherent and cruelly enjoyable narrative.

If you can forgive that one final slip towards respectability, Whisky Galore! remains one of the strongest entry in Ealing Studio’s comedy filmography, one that celebrates its Scottish setting and characters (an idea that would recur in The Maggie), and with sentiments around the regular imbibing of whisky that I’m sure Scotland’s national poet, Rabbie Burns, would have been proud of!

Next time, we will finish the Formby mini-marathon with Let George Do It (1940)...