Most Ealing comedies championed consensus, but Alexander Mackendrick's revelled in conflict. The ‘Maggie’ is a decrepit Clyde 'puffer' boat, whose wily captain dupes a wealthy American businessman to ferry his possessions to his new Scottish island home - then proceeds to delay, hinder and endanger his hapless client. This third of Mackendrick's four comedies for Ealing may be the least known, but it has all the mischief and moral ambiguity of his more celebrated predecessors, Whisky Galore! and The Man in the White Suit.
When a corporation threatens to take over a small railway line, a group of villagers decide to try and run it for themselves. The final collaboration between director Charles Crichton and writer T.E.B. Clarke, The Titfield Thunderbolt is a stunningly scenic gem in Ealing's repertoire. Anarchic an...
Legendary comic Will Hay plays the inept schoolmaster who's parachuted into Nazi Germany when British intelligence discover that he's the spitting image of an enemy master spy. Hay's third film for Ealing Studios is stuffed with memorable sequences, including the notoriously hilarious classroom s...
Masquerading as a string quintet, a gang of thieves plot to rob a bank, whilst renting an unknowing old woman's spare room as a hideaway. The Ladykillers features a deliciously devious Alec Guinness as the brains behind the group, alongside Herbert Lom in his first comedic role, and an appearance...
