Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
by Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton, Charles Frend, Henry Cornelius
Our Price: $82.01
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $58.94 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Basil Radford, Betty Warren, Joan Greenwood, Paul Douglas, Stanley HollowayDirector: Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton, Charles Frend, Henry Cornelius
Writer: Alexander Mackendrick
Writer: Charles Frend
Writer: Angus MacPhail
Writer: Clifford Evans
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 428 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
Movie Review: A excellent collection of forties and fifties British comedies
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
More Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico) reviews:
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
Summary of Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico)
This exclusive collection brings together five of Ealing Studios' greatest comedies, starring such beloved legends as Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Hugh Griffith, Margaret Rutherford and more. Each classic film in the EALING STUDIOS COMEDY COLLECTION has been newly remastered from pristine vault materials, many available for the first time ever in America.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
Similar DVD Movies
Essential Art: Last HolidayImage Entertainment; Release date: 2009-06-16; DVD
Best price: $11.66
Price in other shops:
GenevieveVCI; Release date: 2011-09-06; DVD
Best price: $10.60
Price in other shops:
The Belles Of St. Trinian'sRelease date: 2009-11-24; DVD
Best price: $16.02
Price in other shops:
runaway busRelease date: 2009-08-29; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Terry Thomas Double Feature: Too Many Crooks & Make Mine MinkRelease date: 2011-04-05; DVD
Best price: $7.37
Price in other shops:
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)Release date: 2011-04-14; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Castle in the AirRelease date: 2009-05-13; DVD
Best price: $9.99
School for ScoundrelsLions Gate; Release date: 2007-03-27; DVD
Best price: $4.35
Price in other shops:
Whisky GaloreDVD
Best price: $19.95
Alec Guinness Collection (Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Man With the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise / The Ladykillers)Lions Gate; Release date: 2009-02-03; DVD
Best price: $24.49
Price in other shops: