Although England's Ealing Studios produced a range of films in various genres, the company is best known for the witty, irreverent comedies made between the late 40s and mid-50s under the stewardship of production chief Sir Michael Balcon. Such films as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and The Ladykillers (1955) - all starring Alec Guinness - were popular worldwide and stand out even today for their typically British brand of wry, self-deprecating satire. Although Passport to Pimlico doesn't star the peerless Guinness, it was written by T.E.B. Clarke, who wrote the screenplay for The Lavender Hill Mob, and it features a number of actors who should be familiar to today's viewers. Among them are Stanley Holloway, who later played the father of Eliza Doolittle in the stage and screen versions of My Fair Lady (1964) and Hermione Baddeley, who did a three-year stint in the mid-70s as the housekeeper, Mrs. Naugatuck, on the American sitcom Maude. Also in the cast is the great Margaret Rutherford, who had been in film since 1936 and scored big in the U.S. and England as the medium, Madame Arcati, in the David Lean-Noel Coward Blithe Spirit (1945). Rutherford's most enduring role, however, was as Agatha Christie's jowly sleuth, Miss Jane Marple, in a series of movies in the 1960s.

The jibes at British bureaucracy in Passport to Pimlico commence when an unexploded bomb accidentally goes off in a section of London and papers are unearthed revealing that the neighborhood actually belongs to the old kingdom of Burgundy. The locals quickly free themselves from post-war rationing, pub licensing laws, and other restrictions of government red tape. As the "Burgundians" become more fiercely independent; enforcing visa laws even on the subway that runs beneath their neighborhood; they are besieged by black marketeers and British bureaucrats, who keep passing the buck around while drinking endless cups of tea. Freedom from the restrictions of late 40s England was a notion that appealed to audiences, and the movie quickly became a hit.

The idea for the story came to Clarke after reading an article about how Princess Julianna of the Netherlands, exiled to Canada during the war, was about to have a baby, causing great consternation because the potential heir to the throne would be disqualified by being born on foreign soil. To solve the problem, the Canadian Parliament passed a law making the room in which the birth was to take place Dutch territory. Clarke found in the idea a rich source for poking fun at the government. Although not as lethally satirical as Ealing's other hits of 1949 (Kind Hearts and Coronets and Whiskey Galore), Passport to Pimlico gave its audiences comic relief from postwar burdens, while painting a picture of a society free of restrictions as ultimately chaotic and anarchistic, a "spiv's" (thief's) paradise," as Holloway calls it. In the end, the territory is returned to the Crown, and as an outdoor celebration of the reunification begins, the traditional English rain falls on the crowd, signaling a return to dreary but safe normalcy.

Director Henry Cornelius left Ealing after this film, his first directorial effort. He's probably best known for another delightful English comedy classic, Genevieve (1953), produced for the Rank Organisation and set during the London-to-Brighton antique car rally.

Director: Henry Cornelius
Producer: Michael Balcon
Screenplay: T.E.B. Clarke
Cinematography: Lionel Banes, Cecil Cooney
Editing: Michael Truman
Original Music: Georges Auric
Cast: Stanley Holloway (Arthur Pemberton), Hermione Baddeley (Edie Randall), Margaret Rutherford (Prof. Hatton-Jones), Basil Radford (Gregg), Michael Hordern (Inspector Bashford).
BW-81m.

by Rob Nixon