The Lavender Hill Mob
Sir Alec Guinness stars as a timid bank clerk who has the perfect scheme for stealing gold bullion from the Bank of England. One of the most affectionately remembered Ealing comedies, it features a skit on the 1950's Ealing film The Blue Lamp, with the unlikely gangsters almost getting away with the bullion in a madcap chase climax. In addition to Tibby Clarke's Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay, The Lavender Hill Mob gained Alec Guinness a nomination for Best Actor.
Best Picture BAFTA Winner 1952.
The Man In The White Suit
The most satirical of Ealing's comedies, Sir Alec Guinness plays a would-be research chemist who invents a fabric which will never soil or wear out. Before the threatened unions and business owners can destroy his formula a flaw is revealed - the fabric disintegrates! One of the highlights is Joan Greenwood's rapt response to Guinness' scientific jargon - an enchanting piece of screen comedy and surely a contributor to the Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (Roger Macdougall, Alexander Mackendrick and John Dighton).
The Ladykillers
Alexander Mackendrick's last Ealing comedy and certainly one of the best for which William Rose received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Alec Guinness stars in one of his most vivid disguises, in this killingly funny black comedy gem. The villains plot to kill the old lady who discovers their robbery. But the pensioner is not as harmless as she seems! A rare colour film from Ealing in the '50s, it was premiered in 1955 at the end of the Ealing Green period.
Kind Hearts And Coronets Set
in the stately Edwardian era, Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts And Coronets is a masterpiece of black comedy, with the most articulate and literate of all Ealing screenplays. Sir Alec Guinness gives a virtuoso performance in his Ealing comedy debut, playing all eight victims standing between a mass-murderer and his family fortune. Considered by some to be Ealing's most perfect achievement, it remains the most undated of all the Ealing films.
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