Dead of Night (1945) - Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer

Much like Hammer, Ealing Studios have become pigeonholed for a certain type of film. With Hammer it's obviously horror, despite the fact that they knocked out a whole range of other films back in their heyday - everything from Sci-Fi to comedy and crime films. The same goes for Ealing who are well remembered for their excellent run of comedies, but less so for the hundreds of other films they produced between the early thirties and late fifties.

Dead of Night is one such film, it's a portmanteau horror effort and although it's a little creaky in places is basically a wonderful little British horror film. Directed by a motley crew of Ealing stalwarts, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton, Alberto Cavalcanti, and Robert Hamer it cracks along at a fair old pace. As well as the linking story there are a whopping four others crammed into the 97 minute running time. Dearden directs the main story in which architect Walter Craig (an excellent nervously edgy performance by Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country cottage, only to quickly realise that the inhabitants are the people from a recurring nightmare he's been having. This revelation then encourages the assembled characters to each tell a ghostly story.

Dearden directs the first of these about a racing driver who foresees a bus crash. It's a slight but effective slice of spookiness well directed and well acted, but as is often the case with these anthology films it's almost over before it's begun. The same can be said of the first of the two segments by Cavalcanti, about a ghostly boy at a Christmas party. Far better is the last story (also directed by Cavalcanti) about a ventriloquist and his relationship with his creepy dummy. It's the best section in the whole film, largely down to the fact that it gets a decent amount of time to evolve on screen and the always great Michael Redgrave is the ventriloquist. If you've ever seen Magic then you'll know just how scary a ventriloquist's dummy can be. Not only is it the best segment, but for a modern audience it's the one that will make it hard to sleep after seeing.

The other two stories are a very short but effective effort from Robert Hamer about a freaky mirror staring the excellent Googie Withers, and a misjudged comedic effort from Charles Crichton about a couple of golfers. As a separate film this last one would have worked just fine especially since the two golfers in question are our old friends - Charters and Caldicott. Except here they are renamed (for legal reasons I imagine) Parratt and Potter. They are just as good here as they were when we first met them seven years before in The Lady Vanishes. As I say there's nothing really wrong with their story it just doesn't really fit in here due to it being first and foremost a comedy.

Overall this is a wonderful film, the sort of thing that you should return too again and again (especially during the Halloween season). It also has one of the best endings you'll find in a horror film. All the directors involved in this would go on to make great landmark films for Ealing and others. It'd be nice to see Ealing receive a little more attention for it's output outside of the 'classic comedy', and I think as long as films like this find their way back into shops they will.

The Maggie (1954) - Alexander Mackendrick

 

Some films are best viewed at certain times of the day/week/year. Michael Bay flicks for instance aren't ever going to play as well on a Sunday morning as they do on a Saturday night. The same can be said for the films that emerged from Ealing Studios back in the middle of the last century. Whenever a rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoon comes along and I find myself at home alone, it's those warm unquestionably British films that I reach for first. Especially those directed by Alexander Mackendrick such as The Maggie. Which sadly seems to be overlooked in favour of Mackendrick's big hitters for the studio - The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit and Whiskey Galore! Which is a shame since this is just as perfect as any of those classics.

The Maggie is an old puffer (coal fueled boat) who like it's captain Mactaggart (Alex Mackenzie), has seen better days and should probably be put out to pasture now. Brash American businessman Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Douglas) meets his match when by a typical Ealing twist of fate, The Maggie is contracted to carry his valuable load. Once the mix up is discovered Marshall is determined to have his cargo removed from The Maggie and shipped by someone more reputable. After his bowler hat wearing lacky Pusey (Hubert Gregg), tries and fails (ending up in jail for poaching in one of the films most memorable sections) to reverse the problem he has set in motion, Marshall takes matters into his own hands. This is where the real meat of the film is, since from here on in the film becomes a battle of wits between the gentle Scottishness of Mactaggart and the throw money at problems, time is money attitude of Marshall.

It's a truly perfect post war British film, and contains just about everything I love about this period in British film making. Mackendrick's eye for framing is every bit as good as Carole Reed's or Hitchcock's, his compositions are both beautiful and practical. Just look at the way Pusey is framed when the cell door is slammed shut. The locations that The Maggie and her crew bob past are those jawdroppingly epic Scottish coastal ones that I love, and Mackendrick being a Scot himself obviously feels the same way. Although he never lingers on them, they are just there in the background drifting by looking sublime. There are no David Lean style setting the scene by showing the landscape shots. The script is tight with the film itself coming in at just under 90 minutes, the comedy is gentle and easygoing. Best of all though is the cast, who are just wonderful, from the smallest rolls up to that of the two leads, everyone turns in a great performance. The Wee Boy (Tommy Kearins) has quite a bit of business, loads of lines and is an essential part of the script, and yet despite the fact that this was his first and only film, Kearins proves to be a real find, believable yet still childlike.

There is almost a sub-genre of films set in rural Scotland pitting the wiley locals against some suit from the big smoke. I'm thinking about another favourite film here Local Hero, which is the closest film to The Maggie that I can think of in both feel and subject. Both films feature the fish out of water character changing and learning that life doesn't have to travel at such a fast pace. In fact in both films that character even ends up wearing the costume of the locals. So much so that Pusey doesn't even recognise Marshall when he eventually catches up with him at the films conclusion.

Apparently Mackendrick always saw The Maggie as flawed, I only wish he could have seen it through my eyes since for me it's nothing short of a masterpiece. So if you haven't seen this, and the weather forecast is bad for the coming weekend, then you know what to do. Believe me you'll be hard pressed to spend a better 90 minutes in front of your TV.