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Topic: Ealing comedies


  
  MSN Encarta - Search Results - Ealing
Ealing, town in the London Borough of Ealing, London, England.
Ealing is located midway between central London and the western periphery of...
Ealing Comedies, group of satirical comedies, produced by Michael Balcon at Ealing Studios, that began with Hue and Cry (1947, directed by...
uk.encarta.msn.com /Ealing.html   (88 words)

  
 EALING STUDIOS FUTURE IN DOUBT   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing Films renowned worldwide Ealing Comedies were produced at the studios by Sir Michael Balcon during the 40s and early 50s.
Ealing Studios were let out to independent production companies but now the NFTS has decided to sell and the studios are again on the market with a question mark hanging over their future.
An Ealing Green resident considers that the vendors are looking for get-outs to obtain maximum revenue for the site as real estate, and says that Ealing Green residents would like to see the site continue as film or TV studios.
www.amps.net /newsletters/issue29/29_ealing_studios.htm   (375 words)

  
 Guardian | Once more with Ealing
As it reaches its 100th anniversary, Ealing studios is rebuilding, and aiming to recapture the achievements of its golden era.
The period by which Ealing is now defined was overseen by Michael Balcon, who became studio head in 1938, but the story began nearly 30 years earlier, when the budding impresario and film-maker Will Barker experienced a rush of ambition to the head.
Ealing was, in spirit at least, the birthplace to a thousand teeth-kicking rebels - Reginald Perrin and Basil Fawlty, Morgan and Little Malcolm and Mick Travis, perched in his gun nest at the end of If.
www.guardian.co.uk /print/0,3858,4473585-110760,00.html   (1482 words)

  
 Ealing
But it is also important to preface generalisations with a recognition that Ealing comedies did evolve (responding to changes in the national outlook from the "austerity" of 1947 to the "affluence" of the mid-1950s), and that there are important contrasts in attitude and tone between individual films and the work of individual directors and writers.
We had a great affection for British institutions: the comedies were done with affection, and I don't think we would have thought of tearing down institutions unless we had a blueprint for what we wanted to put in their place.
"Ealing's comedy style was new in that it dealt with the utopian desires of the lower middle class rather than its resentments.
www.newi.ac.uk /rdover/medcult/Ealing.htm   (1300 words)

  
 Ealing Studios   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing Studios, the privately owned studio complex in London, is trumpeting the completion of Phase One of its £50 million ($83.4 million) overhaul of the fabled filmmaking site.
Ealing studios, which spawned a golden age of eccentric British comedy in the 1940s and 1950s, is to update its classic boarding school capers as part of its 100th anniversary revival and £50m revamp.
Ealing studios, Britain's oldest film complex and once the home of the industry's finest and most eccentric comic creations, is this year the talk of the Cannes festival.
www.ealingstudios.co.uk /news/StudioNews/NewsClippings.html   (947 words)

  
 Warwick Boar - Arts   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
The staples of Ealing are all there: tight-knit communities, mild-mannered civil servants and poking fun at law and order, but much of the comedy relies on spoof and lacks any of the cinematic clout that makes the post-war Ealing comedies worthy of big screen re-releases.
Ealing, on the other hand, had to rely on the absurd to help their slightly subversive narratives get by the censors.
Ealing is celebrated for its witty screenplays and great ensembles, but the visual inventiveness of many of the classic comedies is often overlooked.
www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk /boar?article=1160   (1039 words)

  
 Carry on Ealing   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing comedies often show common-sense winning through against the evils of red-tape, bureaucracy, and political extremism.
Woody Allen has admitted that the direction of comedy films tends to be less subtle and sophisticated because they are meant to focus on the actions and lines of the performers, not on the art of the director.
Both Ealing comedies joke with, and at, the pretensions of Louis and a community of Londoners who want to have their former aristocratic privileges and position re-instated.
www.sheffcol.ac.uk /cgi-public/jump.cgi?ID=10163   (4156 words)

  
 Kind Hearts and Coronets   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing comedies are perhaps the most famous and probably the best of the early post war British films.
Though many of the most famous comedies contained similar elements - the attempt by the big firm to swallow up the small, quality producers, a sense of Britishness in the face of Americanisation, the romantic happy e nding - the films remained individual and not formulaic, unlike later series such as the Carry On...
The key difference between Ealing and later comedies was that this small suburb of London produced a very dark humour indeed.
www.st-andrews.ac.uk /~basement/reviews/kindheartsandcoronets.html   (1204 words)

  
 Ealing Studios - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the 1930s and 1940s Ealing produced many comedies with stars such as George Formby and Will Hay who had established their reputations in other spheres of entertainment.
In the post-war period the company embarked on a series of celebrated comedies which became the studio's hallmark.
These were often lightly satirical, and were seen to reflect aspects of British character and society.
www.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ealing_Studios   (372 words)

  
 Foster on Film - Post-War British Comedy   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Besides being comedies, there was no theme or style or item that defined these films, though there were overlaps of all of these.
For those who know the films, “Ealing films” has become synonymous with “1950’s British comedies.” That’s not accurate as less than half of Ealing’s films in this period were comedies, and many other studios made films that fit the movement, particularly British Lion Film, but Ealing certainly made its mark.
Ealing started the movement with 1947’s Hue and Cry, but it was their Kind Hearts and Coronets two years later that made it memorable.
home.comcast.net /~fosteronfilm/british.htm   (1814 words)

  
 Independent, The (London): Ealing comedies to be brought to a new generation
Six classic comedies from the Ealing stable including The Ladykillers and The Lavender Hill Mob have been digitally remastered to mark 100 years of film-making in the London borough of Ealing.
George Perry, author of Forever Ealing, a history of the studios, said Will Barker was the first film-maker in the district when he moved there in 1902 and built a greenhouse as his studio.
Mr Perry said: "The Ealing comedies were remarkable, first of all because they were funny and also because they were very British in their way." Only a third of Ealing's films were actually comedies, he added.
www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_200207/ai_n12630652   (615 words)

  
 Ealing Times: Ealing Guide: Ealing Studios: History
One of the great names in British entertainment, Ealing Studios is famous around the world as the home to the great Ealing comedies of the 1940's and 1950's, and is the oldest film studio in the world still in production.
Ealing Studios is redeveloping the 3.8 acre site in West London to the cost of £50 million and work is already on the way to complete the new state of the art film and television studios.
BRITISH comedy will be celebrated as part of this years Ealing Film Festival with special programmes and screenings of the best in home-grown talent.
www.ealingtimes.co.uk /ealingguide/ealingstudios/ealingstudiohistory   (485 words)

  
 Sir Alec Guinness: The Ealing Comedy DVD Collection (Boxed Set) reviewed by AllZone4DVD.net   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
This box set of four Ealing comedies represents the pick of the crop, starting with Kind Hearts and Coronets, based on a novel by Roy Horniman and directed by Robert Hamerin 1949, moving through T.E.B. Clarke's screenplay for director Charles Crichton's The Lavender Hill Mob in 1951.
Unfortunately the character based comedy gives way to an extensive chase, leaving the mob behind while Guinness and Holloway set off on a hair brained attempt to retrieve some of their ingots, sold as souvenirs.
A classic of English comedy, showing the same kind of dark inventiveness as Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux, this is well worth a look for its many pleasures, including a decidedly demented performance by Guinness as the terribly genteel master criminal.
www.allzone4dvd.net /review_details.htm?id=829   (2109 words)

  
 artauctions   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing Film Studios is celebrating 100 years of making films in 2002, and to celebrate the fact, auctioneers Christie's are holding a special auction of old and rare posters for classic films made by the studios over the years.
Ealing Studios is one of the greatest names in British entertainment, famous around the world as the home of the superb Ealing comedies made during the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1938, Sir Michael Balcon (1896-1977) joined Ealing Studios as executive producer and oversaw almost 20 years of the most astonishing creative output the film industry in Britain has ever seen, producing a string of successful comedies and thrillers.
www.50connect.co.uk /50c/artauctions.asp?article=5791   (511 words)

  
 Buy Ealing Comedy DVD Collection - The Ladykillers/Kind Hearts and Coronets/The Lavender Hill Mob/The Man in the White ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing's greatest comedies captured the essence of post-war Britain, both in their evocation of a land once blighted by war but now rising doggedly and optimistically again from the ashes, and in their mordant yet graceful humour.
On the DVD: The Ealing Comedy Collection presents the four discs in a fold-out package with postcards of the original poster artwork for each.
Ealing studios were masters of their craft - however I would have liked wiskey Galore to be included in the mix as it had not appeared on DVD as yet.
dvd-search.co.uk /B00006G9WJ/Ealing_Comedy_DVD_Collection-The_Ladykillers-Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets-The_Lavender_Hill_Mob-The_Man_in_the_White_Suit_1955.html   (542 words)

  
 Turner Classic Movies This Month Article   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Balcon was responsible for such unadorned Ealing dramas as The Cruel Sea (1953) and, most notably, the droll movies that became internationally celebrated as the "Ealing comedies" and practically defined British humor.
Ealing, still located at Ealing Green in West London, can lay claim to being the world’s oldest movie studio.
Ealing's golden era began with the release of the whimsical comedy Passport to Pimlico (1949), featuring Stanley Holloway as a genial grocer who becomes the head of a new government in a section of London that it is discovered to belong to France.
tcm.tv /ThisMonth/Article/0,,12634,00.html   (407 words)

  
 Will Hollywood murder the Ealing Comedy? [Free Republic]
In another improbable rehash of Ealing history, the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, renowned for their touchingly original but frequently violent films, have started writing a new version of The Ladykillers.
Sir Alec was one of a team of thieves who passed themselves off as a group of musicians to allay the suspicions of their frail old landlady as they planned a raid on a London rail terminus.
When she rumbled them, they decided to bump her off but, typical of the Ealing brand of farce, it was she who survived and they who met nasty ends.
www.freerepublic.com /forum/a39537f8851fc.htm   (1103 words)

  
 Yellow Layer Failure, Vinegar Syndrome and Miscellaneous Musings by Robert A. Harris   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Ealing was the home of directors Alberto Cavalcanti, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton, Robert Stevenson, Anthony Krimmins, Harry Watt, Alexander Mackendrick, Robert Hamer, Seth Hold and others.
But when one thinks of Ealing, one must think in terms of the films which made it famous, the studio becoming an adjective.
And when speaking of Ealing Comedies, the consummate bits of perfection which must come to mind are those which star Sir Alec.
www.thedigitalbits.com /articles/robertharris/harris102802.html   (3794 words)

  
 BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Ealing comedies back in cinemas
The centenary of the UK's famous Ealing Studios is being celebrated with the cinema re-release of six classic Ealing comedies on Friday.
The six films were made during the "golden era" of Ealing Studios and are regarded as some of the best UK films ever made.
The first of the films being shown, Passport to Pimlico, was released in 1949, while The Ladykillers, also being re-released, was one of the last films to be made at Ealing Studios before it was sold to the BBC in 1955.
news.bbc.co.uk /2/low/entertainment/2179073.stm   (379 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! ...   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
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.
Not only is this British comedy at it's best but this collection is a mirror of the social history of the island nation(rationing, intrusive government buracracy, loss of personal freedoms) post World War II and serves to vent the frustrations of the British citizens.
Ealing Studios were responsible for a substantial number of the finest films of the forties and fifties in Great Britain.
www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007LPSFO?v=glance   (2775 words)

  
 DVD Verdict Review - The Alec Guinness Collection
Ealing Studios had a long and generally distinguished history as one of the British film industry's most well-known components.
It was under Balcon's tenure (1938-1959) that Ealing developed its flair for compact comedies that were distinctly British in flavour and that tended to glorify the small, the individual, the unusual, and the down-to-earth at the expense of the large, the establishment, the conventional, and the pretentious.
The film also is a good introduction to Ealing's stock company of British actors, notably the likes of Joan Greenwood (she of the sultry, spooky voice who plays Sibella) and Miles Malleson (a fussy hangman who allows his poetry to delay Mazzini's hanging).
www.dvdverdict.com /reviews/alecguinness.php   (2784 words)

  
 Alexander Mackendrick
It is perhaps the most conformative of Mackendrick’s Ealing comedies, reminiscent of Passport to Pimlico in the gentle fun it pokes at the powers that be.
Some have even seen it as a veiled portrait of Ealing in it’s last days, with dotty Mrs Wilberforce as Balcon and her subsiding house where the pictures never hang straight, as the studio.
The film steers skilfully from comedy to drama and finally, in the climatic court scene where Quinn faces the death penalty, tragedy.
www.iol.ie /~galfilm/filmwest/24alex.htm   (2377 words)

  
 Ealing Studios - history - wickedlady.com
Ealing Studios are best known for their run of now classic comedies of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
With the onset of war Balcon decided to change the format of the films produced by Ealing and from this period onwards the majority were made from original screenplays rather than books or plays.
The types of films made at Ealing during the war are naturally dominated by war films, Balcon felt an obligation to make the film industry work for the national good.
www.wickedlady.com /films/ealing/ealing.html   (1458 words)

  
 BBC - Films - review - The Ladykillers
The last of the great Ealing Comedies, "The Ladykillers" is a wonderfully macabre fl comedy that really does improve with age.
Ealing stalwart Alec Guinness delivers a typically mesmerising performance as Professor Marcus, a criminal mastermind whose brain should have been displaying an Out of Order sign for some time.
Luckily, it's also easy to see it as a deliciously fl comedy - a sister picture to "Kind Hearts and Coronets" - in which five supposedly hardened criminals go weak at the knees at the thought of doing in a little old lady.
www.bbc.co.uk /films/2002/08/08/the_ladykillers_1955_review.shtml   (424 words)

  
 Untitled Document   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
During the war years, Ealing's creativity was turned to good use producing films designed to keep the British spirit up, and as the war progressed, the studios increasingly worked with the Ministry of Information in the production of propoganda films.
The comedies are what Ealing will be best remembered for, and Balcon said that their comedy lay in how groups of characters, many unconventional, would run up against and eventually solve an apparently insoluble problem.
Clarke was suited to this role as he had signed up as a policeman at the beginning of the war, (being unable to get into the Army), and he also had recognised writing skills, being quite well known for a regular humorous feature in the Evening News before the war.
mail.bris.ac.uk /~liserc/backgrd.html   (644 words)

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