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Alec Guinness with head featured Yvonne Mit chell, Alexander (Margaret Johnson) and daughter (June
Knox and juvenile Michael May as the boy in the centre of the legal court battle. Directed by Charles Crichton, you might even spot John Schlesinger as a ticket collector!
Another Ealing production of 1955 vintage was the hospital drama, The Feminine Touch. Based on Sheila MacKay Russell’s novel A Lamp Is Heavy, the film followed the trials and tribula- tions of five lambs (student nurses) in the wards of the fictitious St. Augustine’s Hospital. Played by Belinda Lee,(tragical- ly killed in a car crash in Italy at the sum- mit of her career) Delphi Lawrence, Adrienne Corri, Henryetta Hdwards and Barbara Archer under the watchful eye of Matron (Diana Wynyard). Little Mandy Miller (remember her?), who first came to prominence in Ealing’s 1952 film bear- ing her name, made a guest appearance guaranteed to leave not a dry eye in the house. George Baker and Christopher Rhodes played two young doctors with a roving eye for a pretty face and a shapely
leg of lamb. Under Pat Jackson’s timely direction, realism was supplied in abun- dance by the Guy’s Hospital locations.
It was back to Ealing comedy for Who Done It ?, which introduced TV comic supremo Benny Hill to the large screen format in a screenplay especially tailored by the studio’s own comedy genius, T.E.B. (Tibby) Clarke. Produced and directed by Michael Relph and Basil Dearden, aiding and abetting Hill’s first screen venture were David Kossoff, Ernest Thesiger, Jeremy Hawk, Thorley Walters, Charles Hawtrey - and, believe it or not, the Dagenham Girl Pipers.
Also from Ealing in 1955 came Touch And Go, a romantic comedy which starred Jack Hawkins as a frustrat- ed furniture designer with his wife
bowed was walking at a funereal pace behind Danny Green pushing a wheelbar- row containing the bowler- hatted corpse from which
the unmistakable check trousers of the late Major (Cecil Parker) were protrud- ing. The body was hastily trundled from the barrow and dropped over the para- pet of the railway bridge timed for the passing of a goods train far below.
The location was behind London’s Kings Cross Station, for The Ladykillers, the final macabre comedy from Ealing before moving to MGM’s British Studio at Borehamwood. It was June, 1955, a fine month for exterior shooting, and a large crowd quickly gathered to watch the principal stars including Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers and Katie Johnson, playing her first leading role at 75.
Sandy Mackendrick, an American- born Scot, was in the director’s chair for The Ladykillers, moving soon after to Hollywood where he helmed The Sweet Smell Of Success. He and resi-
dent art director Tom Morahan worked wonders in constructing
the Wilberforce house at the end
of nearby Frederica Street, there-
by helping to turn The Ladykillers into the last great
Ealing masterpiece. At a time
when most of the studio’s films
were still in black and white, The Ladykillers had the rare distinc-
tion of being colour.
My first memories of Ealing
were in 1952 when Thorold Dickinson’s political drama Secret People was in production.
The location was West Street, just
off Cambridge Circus in London’s
West End, with Italian stars Sergei Regianni and Valentina Cortese. In an interesting casting
coup a very young Audrey Hepburn played Nora, chosen for
her talent as a ballerina. Secret People also became the subject
of a ‘making of the film’ book by embryonic director, Lindsay Anderson.
Back at the studio on Ealing Green, Basil Dearden’s Out Of the Clouds was in production with a large cast headed by Anthony Steel, Robert Beatty, David Knight, Margo Lorenz, James Robertson Justice and Eunice Gayson. Heathrow Airport was the principal setting, its, main terminal built on Ealing’s largest sound stage, for the story concerning twenty four fog bound hours in the life of a major international airport.
In much darker mood was The Divided Heart, an immediate post-war ‘weepie’ involving two women over who is the rightful mother of an adopted boy. German stars Cor nell Bor c her s and Armin Dahlen came to Ealing for the star roles, while the international cast also
Thorburn) The result was a really sub- standard Ealing, especially from director Michael Truman and scriptwriter William (Genevieve) Rose, who was fortunately soon later to redeem himself admirably with The Ladykillers.
That became the last film to be shot at Ealing before the studio was sold to the BBC which precipitated a move to Borehamwood where they set up busi- ness under the Ealing/MGM banner. The Long Arm became the first of eight pro- ductions to be based there and released in the following year.
This Jack Hawkins crime drama was quickly followed by Man In the Sky (again with Hawkins), The Shiralee ( P e t e r F i n c h ) , B ar n ac l e B i l l ( A l e c Guinness) Davy (Harry Secombe), the WWII all-star drama Dunkirk, directed by Leslie Norman and Nowhere To Go team- ing American George Nader with Maggie Smith. The final curtain came down for Ealing with Harry Watt’s 1959 helming of The Siege Of Pinchgut, a tough prison
break-out drama shot in Australia with Hollywood’s tough guy Aldo Ray and inte- riors at Borehamwood, and the very last Ealing film to carry the name.
But the studio has left a rich legacy which stretches back over many years. Who can ever forget such Ealing Studio classics as Johnny Frenchman, Dead Of Night, Pink String And Sealing Wax, The Captive Heart, Hue And Cry, Nicholas Nickleby, The Loves Of Joanna Godden, It Always Rains On Sunday, Saraband For Dead Lovers, Scott Of the Antarctic, Passport To Pimlico, Whisky Galore, Kind Hearts And Coronets (with Alec Guinness playing a staggering eight parts), The Blue Lamp, The Magnet, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man
In the White Suit, Mandy, The Titfield Thunderbolt, The Cruel Sea and of course, The Maggie.
And Ealing always had its own coterie of distinguished directors whose names are part of British cinema history i n c l u d i n g A l b e r t o C av al c an t i , B as i l Dearden, Charles Crichton, Alexander M ac kend r ic k, Rob er t Hamer , L es lie Norman, Thorold Dickinson, Pat Jackson, Charles Frend, Harry Watt, Henry C o r n e l i u s , S e t h H o l t a n d M i c h ae l Tr uman, many of whom graduated through learning their craft in the cutting- rooms.
Much of Ealing’s success can also be accredited to Academy Award-win- ning scriptwriter T.E.B. Clarke (those triple initials stand for Thomas Edward
Iain McAsh talking with Valerier White on the set of the now classic Hue And Cry at Ealing Studios in 1947
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Stills courtesy BFI Stills & Posters/Moviestore Collection/Iain McAsh/Graffiti/Foyer/All copyright owners acknowledged where known.