Ealing Studios

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The Ealing Studios is a film studio and a film production company in London district of Ealing . The studio site has been in operation for more than 100 years and was best known in the 1930s to 1950s for numerous films that are now considered classics in British cinema . The Ealing comedies, published from 1947 to 1958, became the epitome of British humor .

History of the studios

Ealing Studios' White Lodge

The history of Ealing Studios goes back to 1902 when the British film pioneer Will Barker acquired what is now the White Lodge , a building in Ealing Green. Two years later, Barker bought another building and began filming his Autoscope Company's films on the grounds . In 1907, Barker built the first of three studios with glass roofs that allowed filming regardless of the weather. In the mid-1910s, Barker's studio was one of the largest and most important in the United Kingdom.

When Barker retired from the film business in 1918, the studio premises were used by various independent producers. In 1929 Basil Dean bought the site and in 1931 built the first film studio in England specially designed for talkies , right next to the old studio buildings . His company Associated Talking Pictures (ATP) produced around 60 films in the 1930s and brought stars such as Gracie Fields and George Formby Jr. emerged. Talents like the director Carol Reed or the actresses Margaret Lockwood and Madeleine Carroll were discovered here.

In 1938 Dean handed over the reins of ATP to the successful producer Michael Balcon , who had previously directed Gainsborough Pictures , Gaumont-British and the British subsidiary of MGM . The change in leadership was associated with a renaming of the film production company. Was previously Ealing Studios Ltd. a subsidiary of ATP, Ealing was now not only the name of the studio in which the film was shot, but also the name of the company that produced the film.

Michael Balcon consistently implemented the motto “The studio with the team spirit” coined by Basil Dean at Ealing . Balcon gathered a team of producers, directors and screenwriters who would shape the style of Ealing in the years that followed. Only six directors were responsible for 60% of the films produced between 1938 and 1955: Basil Dearden , Charles Crichton , Charles Frend , Robert Hamer , Alexander Mackendrick and Harry Watt . Around half of all scripts came from TEB Clarke , Angus Macphail and John Dighton .

During the Second World War , Balcon relied primarily on a realistic narrative style, which was also expressed in the commitment of the documentary filmmakers Harry Watt and Alberto Cavalcanti . Ealing thus documented the social change at the beginning of the 1940s, when members of the middle and lower classes took on responsibility in both military and civil life. Films like Nine Men by Harry Watt or San Demetrio London by Charles Frend (both released in 1943) showed common soldiers in action, while Alberto Cavalcanti's Went the Day Well? from 1942 described the fear of the infiltration of a small village by German spies. In addition, several comedies were produced with Will Hay , who had switched from Gainsborough to Ealing, above all The Ghost of St. Michael’s (1941) and My Learned Friend (1943).

Although he had spoken out against the supremacy of the Rank Organization in the British film industry in 1943 , Balcon concluded a contract with J. Arthur Rank in 1944 for the distribution of Ealing's films. Ealing lost its independence, but was granted extensive autonomy by Rank.

After the war, Ealing consciously tried his hand at a wide variety of film genres such as the classic horror film Dream Without End (1945), the Victorian drama Apotheker Sutton (1946) or the biography Scott's Last Journey (1948). The greatest success was the 1947 comedy The Little Detectives based on a script by TEB Clarke. This was followed by three films in 1949 that defined the style of the Ealing comedy. Blockade in London satirized the situation in post-war London and featured comedy actors such as Stanley Holloway , Basil Radford and Margaret Rutherford . Alexander Mackendricks Joy of Life played during World War II and was based on a real event off the Hebridean island of Eriskay . Both films praised the little man's team spirit against the authorities. Ealing's third success in 1949 was Robert Hamer's black comedy Adel , in which Alec Guinness appeared in eight roles. Guinness also starred in the Ealing comedies Fortune Came Overnight , The Man in the White Suit (both 1951) and Ladykillers 1955. Guinness received an Oscar nomination for Fortune Came Overnight , Clarke won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Although only 17 of the 58 post-war productions were Ealings comedies, they had a lasting impact on the studio's image. In addition, there were crime films such as The Blue Lamp , which was the most successful film of the year in 1950 and brought the actor Dirk Bogarde 's breakthrough, and war films such as The Great Atlantic from 1952 or Dunkirk from 1958.

Economic problems forced Balcon to sell the studio premises to the BBC in 1955 . Ealing produced films under its own name in the MGM studios in Elstree until 1958 and then finally ceased operations. The last film from the studios, The Siege of Punchgut , hit UK theaters in August 1959. The BBC used the studios in Ealing from 1956 to 1992 for various television productions. In 1995 Ealing was bought by the National Film and Television School .

In 2000, Ealing Studios was revived as a film production company. The comedy Being Serious Is Everything , released in 2002, was the first film since 1959 to be presented as an Ealing Studios production . With The Girls of St. Trinian (2007) Ealing managed one of the most successful independent film productions in the United Kingdom. The studio premises were also used by other production companies, including Notting Hill , Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones , Bridget Jones - On the Edge of Madness and Shaun of the Dead in Ealing.

The utility rooms of the British television series Downton Abbey , as well as the bedrooms, were set up in the Ealing Studios , so that not all recordings were made on Highclere Castle .

Even if the owners of the studio premises have changed several times since 1902, the Ealing Studios are considered to be the oldest continuously operating film studio in the world.

All Ealing comedies of the classic phase

  • 1947: At him with a roar ( Hue and Cry )
  • 1948: Another Shore
  • 1949: Blockade in London ( Passport to Pimlico )
  • 1949: The Whiskey Ship ( Whiskey Galore! )
  • 1949: Nobility obliged ( Kind Hearts and Coronets )
  • 1949 fight for money ( A Run for Your Money )
  • 1950: The Magnet
  • 1951: Luck Came Overnight ( The Lavender Hill Mob )
  • 1951: The Man in the White Suit ( The Man in the White Suit )
  • 1952: His Excellency
  • 1953: The Titfield-Express ( The Titfield Thunderbolt )
  • 1953: Meet Mr. Lucifer
  • 1954: Love Lottery ( The Love Lottery )
  • 1954: The old boat ( The 'Maggie' )
  • 1955: The Other Half Of Me ( Touch and Go )
  • 1955: Ladykillers ( The Ladykillers )
  • 1956: Who Done It?
  • 1957: Captain Seasick ( Barnacle Bill )
  • 1958: Davy

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rachael Low: The History of the British Film Vol. III, 1914-1918 , Routledge, London 1997, ISBN 0-415-15451-0 , p. 66.
  2. ^ Charles Barr: Ealing Studios , p. 4.
  3. ^ Charles Drazin: The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s . IB Tauris, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-84511-411-4 , pp. 105-106.
  4. ↑ Jörg Helbig: History of British Film , p. 33.
  5. ↑ Michael Balcon: Realism or Tinsel? . Workers Film Association, Brighton 1943.
  6. ^ Robert Murphy: Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1939-1949 . Routledge, London 1992, ISBN 0-415-07684-6 , p. 61.
  7. ^ Michael Balcon: Michael Balcon Presents… A Lifetime of Films . Hutchinson, London 1969, p. 157.
  8. ↑ Jörg Helbig: History of British Film , p. 132.
  9. ^ Sue Harper, Vincent Porter: British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-815934-6 , p. 247.
  10. ↑ The England that never existed was so beautiful in FAZ of September 3, 2014, page 13
  11. ^ House of Lords : The British film and television industries - decline or opportunity? Volume II: Evidence . The Stationery Office Limited, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-10-845930-6 , p. 544.

literature

  • Charles Barr: Ealing Studios . University of California Press, Berkeley 1998, ISBN 0-520-21554-0 .
  • Jörg Helbig: History of British Film . JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01510-6 .

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 32.8 "  N , 0 ° 18 ′ 22.1"  W.