BINGEWATCH
One writer. Six British
classics. Cockles
will be warmedON ANY RAINY holiday, you are legally required
to watch films. As old and fusty as possible. Today is
a holiday, and it’s raining: ideal for a day’s worth
of classics from Britain’s most famous film studio.
Let’s get cracking...9AM DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)
Given Ealing’s association with gentle comedies,
it’s a singular pleasure to start with an anthology
horror. Dead Of Night is not especially well-known
but very influential (Matthew Holness cited it as
an inspiration for Possum; Martin Scorsese is a
fan), and though by modern standards it’s tepid
rather than actually chilling — one character is
haunted into never playing golf again, if you can
imagine such a thing — it has a nice, proto-
Twilight Zone pace and a “decidedly improper”
final twist in its framing device.10.45AM PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949)
Now we’re into more classic ‘Ealing comedy’
territory, with this improbably lovely little yarn
about a community of Londoners who, for arcane
reasons, decide to secede from the UK to form the
independent country of ‘Burgundy’. With my 2019
eyes, it feels hard not to read some sort of modern
parable: like Brexit, there’s lots of talk about
foreigners, self-determination, and negotiations
reaching an impasse; unlike Brexit, it’s all sorted
out with a good old knees-up down the local.12.15PM WHISKY GALORE! (1949)
Another heartwarming tale of a community
telling bureaucrats to piss off. During the war,
the remote Scottish island of Todday runs out
of whisky — a fate “worse than Hitler’s bombs”,
as Finlay Currie’s narration claims — only for a
ship with 50,000 cases of the stuff to handily run
aground. I start to wonder if I should have a wee
dram myself. After noon on a holiday is the rule,
right? What’s the rule about drinking alone while
watching 70-year-old films on your day off?EALING
STUDIOS
CLASSICS
1.45PM KIND HEARTS AND
CORONETS (1949)
After two films of thigh-slapping jollities, I’m not
sure what I need right now is a dark comedy about
the delicate sensibilities of British social classes in
the Edwardian era. The BFI named it the sixth-
best British film of all time, but I’m reaching
for a glass of 16-year-old Lagavulin. What holds
my interest is the extraordinary performances
(plural!) of Ealing regular Alec Guinness, playing
nine characters here; in many ways, this is the
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps of the Ealing canon.3.45PM THE LAVENDER HILL MOB
(1951)
There’s a sense of déjà vu, watching these films in
quick succession. Ealing had many actors under
contract, so the same faces keep popping up.
Look, it’s Alec Guinness again! Look, there’s
Joan Greenwood from Whisky Galore!, and Miles
Malleson from Dead Of Night! And bloody hell, it’s
Sid James! (And — is that Audrey Hepburn?) There
is familiarity elsewhere, too: it’s a hop across the
Thames and not miles from the antiquated charm
of Passport To Pimlico. Still, when it works, it works.5.15PM THE LADYKILLERS (1955)
It occurs to me that I have spent roughly eight
hours in a black-and-white world and have thus
forgotten, Pleasantville-style, what colour looks
like. So the Technicolor of The Ladykillers hits me
like a railway signal to the face. Its memory might
be slightly tarnished by the 2004 remake with Tom
Hanks, officially The One Rubbish Coen Brothers
Movie™, but the original remains a delicious
treat. Alec Guinness is back, of course, indulging
in his own hive of scum and villainy, while Katie
Johnson as Mrs Wilberforce is a Wilber-force to be
Wilber-reckoned with. I, on the other hand, am
nearly exhausted from watching films — until I see
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is about to start
on TV. Well, rules are rules! JOHN NUGENTAnother film that become a sort
of cult, for whatever reason, is
Road House.
Yeah. It’s hard to figure out. Anytime
anyone asks me about it, I think of
Patrick [Swayze], and his battle with
cancer and leaving Lisa [Niemi, his wife]
behind. That’s a terrible thing. Patrick
was very much the Southern gentleman.
And his artistry as a dancer, it was just
astounding to watch him work. He and
I made a connection as fellow actors;
I think I’d been in the business long
enough that he looked up to me on some
levels and I loved him for that. In terms
of why it resounds with the audience,
I think it’s the ultimate male fantasy,
guys kicking guys’ asses and getting the
big-busted girls and all that shit. It’s kind
of a mystery to me, but that has to be
part of it.You’ve done a lot of Westerns and
quasi-Western characters — including this
film. Is it your favourite genre or just one
that your face fits?
My family’s all from Texas, going back
to the 1800s, so I think it was just part
of my make-up. And it was my favourite
genre when I was growing up. There’s
something about the simplicity of that
form I’ve always enjoyed. Not a lot of
grey areas in classic Westerns.Even your narrator in The Big Lebowski
is a cowboy. How long did
it take to shoot those scenes?
Two days. I used to be the guy in the hat;
now I’m the guy who can get it done in
two days. But I was very sorry I was only
there for two days. I’ll give you a little
backstory. It was at a point there where
I was wondering if I was ever going to
do anything beyond a Western. I was
in Texas working with John Milius on
Rough Riders [1997 TV series], playing
this cavalry officer, and the script for
The Big Lebowski came to me. I was so
excited, thinking, “The Coen brothers! It’s
going to be some crazy fuckin’ character,
a chance for me to do something
different.” Then I started reading, and
my name is literally in the script. It talks
about the voiceover “sounding not unlike
Sam Elliott” and he appears, it says,
“looking not unlike Sam Elliott” and
it’s like, “Jesus.” But it was finally
a chance to get over my angst about
being the Western guy; I fully embraced it
after that. Without that, I wouldn’t have
been there at the bar talking to the
Dude. HELEN O’HARATHE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER AND THEN
THE BIGFOOT IS OUT NOW ON DVD
BRYAN SHEFFIELD/EYEVINE, ALAMY, CAPITAL PICTURES, LANDMARKAND DOWNLOAD