Mar 1st
A Run for Your Money**        
(GB 1949)
Rank/Ealing. 85m. bw

Two Welsh miners win a trip to the England-Wales rugby international but get sidetracked by the London lifestyle.
For St. David's Day, this exemplary Ealing comedy with its share of amusing observations and stereotypes, and some amusing cameos including Guinness as a put-upon gardening correspondent.

Written by: Clifford Evans, Richard Hughes, Leslie Norman, Charles Frend, Diana Morgan.
Producers: Michael Balcon, Leslie Norman.
Director: Charles Frend.
Starring: Donald Houston, Meredith Edwards, Hugh Griffith, Alec Guinness, Moira Lister, Clive Morton, Leslie Perrins. Joyce Grenfell, Julie Milton, Peter Edwards.
Photography: Douglas Slocombe.
Music: Ernest Irving.

Mar 23rd  
Meet Mr Lucifer
(GB 1953) 
Rank/Ealing. 81m. bw

A music hall has-been hurts his head playing the Devil, and meets his real-life counterpart who encourages him to corrupt people through television.
Disappointingly fragmented TV satire lacking Ealing's usual whimsy, with a plot that doesn't really go anywhere, and actors not given enough screen time, including the title character.

w, p: Monja Danischewsky, from the play "Beggar My Neighbour" by Arnold Ridley
d: Anthony Pelissier
s: Stanley Holloway, Jack Watling, Peggy Cummins, Barbara Murray, Joseph Tomelty, Gordon Jackson, Ernest Thesiger, Joan Sims, Kay Kendall, Gilbert Harding
ph: Desmond Dickinson
m: Eric Rogers

Nov 24th  
Laxdale Hall*
(GB 1952)             
Group 3. 77m. bw

A Parliamentary delegation is sent  to a remote Highland village where the locals have taken the law into their own hands to combat poachers and to petition for a new road.
Decent enough scenic Scottish whimsy, of a fashion for the time, not especially dramatic but with pleasant performances.

Written by: Alfred Shaughnessy, John Eldridge, from the novel by Eric Linklater.
Producer: Alfred Shaughnessy.
Director: John Eldridge.
Starring: Raymond Huntley, Ronald Squire, Kathleen Ryan, Sebastian Shaw, Fulton Mackay, Prunella Scales, Jameson Clark, Andrew Keir, Kynaston Reeves, Jean Colin.
Photogtsphy: Arthur Grant, Ken Hodges.
Music: Frank Spencer.

LAXDALE HALL. Romance blossoms for two future sitcom stars: Fulton Mackay and Prunella Scales.

Sep 27th  
Mandy**        
(GB 1952)                               
Rank/Ealing. 93m. bw

A deaf girl is the cause of a custodial battle between her parents over her as they try to teach her to speak.
Sensitively performed, if unnecessarily melodramatic around its sweet little child of the title, intending to give more substance to what is already a moving disability drama with Hawkins on good form as ever as the teacher.

Written by: Nigel Balchin, Jack Whittingham, based on the novel "The Day is Ours" by Hilda Lewis.
Producer: Leslie Norman.
Director: Alexander Mackendrick.
Starring: Phyllis Calvert, Jack Hawkins, Mandy Miller, Terence Morgan. Godfrey Tearle, Marjorie Fielding, Dorothy Allison, Eleanor Summerfield, Patricia Plunkett, Jane Asher.
Photography: Douglas Slocombe.
Music: William Alwyn.

Feb 7th    
Passport to Pimlico***  
(GB 1949)                                                     

A post-war London borough unearths evidence that it is actually owned by the Duke of Burgundy and therefore free of rationing and other English laws.
Only fleetingly fantastical and whimsical but always enjoyable gentle satire of Britain at the time (with its opening epitaph to ration books), one of Ealing's best at conveying the common spirit of the nation (generations before the sad uncertainty and insecurity of "Brexit") in semi-documentary fashion, with plenty of twists and turns in the script and a great British cast.

Written by: T.E.B. Clarke.
Producer: E.V.H. Emmett.
Director: Henry Cornelius.
Starring: Stanley Holloway, Raymond Huntley, Margaret Rutherford, Hermione Baddeley, Barbara Murray, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Paul Dupuis, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Sidney Tafler, Charles Hawtrey, Michael Hordern, and others.
Photography: Lionel Banes.
Music: Georges Auric.

PASSPORT TO PIMLICO. Pimlico was actually Hercules Road, Lambeth for filming purposes, now a silent ghost of a gentler, less cynical Britain long before the days of "Brexit". 

Oct 23rd 
The Man in the White Suit**     

(GB 1951)

Rank/Ealing. 82m. bw

A rogue young scientist constructs an indestructible fabric which horrifies both industry and workers alike, who unite to stop him.
Incisive, brilliantly made, almost anti-Ealing comedy (the flip side of their usual British stoicism) with doses of sci-fi and lots of excellent performances....and yet, the satire seems misguided and the comedy resolves itself in a series of farcical chases rather than any satisfying plot development. The ending is suitably memorable with echoes of Fritz Lang more than British comedy.

Written by: John Dighton, Alexander Mackendrick, Roger MacDougall, based on his play.
Producers: Michael Balcon, Sidney Cole.
Director: Alexander Mackendrick.
Starring: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Michael Gough, Ernest Thesiger, Howard Marion Crawford, Vida Hope, Patric Doonan, Henry Mollison, Edie Martin, Mandy Miller.
Photography: Douglas Slocombe.
Music: Benjamin Frankel.

Preceded by:
The Pilgrim*
(US 1923. 40m. bw. silent; An escaped convict disguises as a priest in a small town, but prevents a fellow former inmate from stealing from a family. Variable satire only occasionally hitting the mark, but Chaplin for once keeps sentiment at bay.; w, d: Charles Chaplin; s: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Tom Murray, Sydney Chaplin, Mack Swain.)