PASSPORT TO PIMLICO

UK, 1949, 84 minutes, Black and white.
Stanley Holloway, Betty Warren, Barbara Murray, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Hermione Baddeley, Margaret Rutherford.
Directed by Henry Cornelius.

Passport to Pimlico was one of the earliest comedy successes of the Ealing Studios. With directors like Robert Hamer, Henry Cornelius, who made this film and Charles Crichton, under the presidency of Sir Michael Balcon, the studios made a series of comedies which are notable in the history of cinema. They made a great mark in the revival of the British film industry in the forties and fifties. Stars like Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and especially Alec Guinness worked to the fore in these films. They took local situations and crisp dialogue and humorous, even farcical, situations which appealed to British audiences but also were accessible to audiences all over the world. They seem somewhat dated now in their issues and in their background. However they still stand as gems of English comedy reflecting the genius of the English humour and reflecting the atmosphere of the time.

1. How successful a comedy was this? What is the purpose of comedy? laughter, insight via the foibles of human nature? If this is so, how successful a comedy was this? Why?

2. How satirical was this comedy? The satire on the English? The Londoners, the post-World War II situation, independence, authority? How effective was the satire? Was it too black or was it just right? How does it seem so much later?

3. Comment on the style of the film, the black and white photography, the location photography, the use of music, the humorous criteria, situations, humorous characters? Were the characters persons or caricatures? The presentation of small incidents, as giving insights into persons and situations? Small sequences of comedy?

4. What did the film have to say about England and the war? About Britain after the war? the impact of the war and post-war footing?

5. How well did the film show ordinary people in London? In their jobs and work, the city's meetings, the projects for parks, life in the various homes, the children playing in the ruins, the attitude of the parents about the bomb, the bomb going off, the finding of the money? Were these people presented sympathetically or not? Or something of both?

6. What did the film have to say about managing independence? The fact that the people of Pimlico so readily seceded from England? What did this say about English independence and attitudes? How humorously?

7. What did the film show of human greed, the finding of the treasure? various claims, the way that Pimlico became Burgundy? The greed in storing up things in Pimlico, plunderers trying to get into Pimlico? the fact that a war could come from this kind of greed even within London?

8. How satirical was the film on bureaucracy? The ineffectiveness of the British Government? Their devices for being at war? their attempts to trick them? contrast then between the Londoners being sympathetic - eg their throwing the food over the wire?

9. The humour of the professor and her claims about Burgundy? Margaret Rutherford's contribution to the film?

10. Comment on the clashes of personality in the film? More irony and humour? Yet their reality?

11. Which details of the film were most impressive? Which allegorisations were most telling?

12. Why could this film be considered a classic of English comedy. Why?