Tight Little Ealing

On a four-acre plot in the London suburb of Ealing, a tightly knit little group of moviemakers is earning the reputation of turning out consistently good comedies. Curiously, Ealing Studios' non-formula films are made on a basic formula: begin with a situation that is improbable but possible, yet "not wholly fantastic." Last week Ealing's latest, The Man in the White Suit (see below), was being greeted with whoops of laughter by audiences in Manhattan. True to formula, the story is improbable but possible (it revolves around a scientist who invents an indestructible fabric), and it proved once again that Ealing's methods--at least by Hollywood's standards--are nearly as fantastic as the picture's plot.

First the Story. Ealing has prospered, says Production Director Sir Michael Balcon, because it has resolutely avoided making "pale imitations of U.S. films." After World War II, several British companies began trying to outspend Hollywood. Ealing decided that its films (average cost: $420,000), if good enough, would make enough money at home, and perhaps find a small extra market in the U.S. Thinking first of the story and director, and last of a star, Balcon found that his pictures, made with no concession to American tastes, were more popular in the U.S. than British-made imitations of the Hollywood product. Ealing's top successes in the U.S.: Passport to Pimlico (a small section of postwar London is discovered to be foreign soil), Kind Hearts and Coronets (a likable young man kills off six of his relatives), Tight Little Island (a whisky famine makes criminals of a whole island), Lavender Hill Mob (a mild-mannered clerk pulls off a bank robbery).

Balcon, 55, runs Ealing with few Hollywood mannerisms. "I'm not a glamour boy," he says. "I loathe cigars, I haven't got a swimming pool, I've only been married once, and I'm a mass of indecisions." His writers and directors talk over their ideas at round-table conferences, often held in a pub across the street.

One Toe. The studio's top scriptwriter, T. E. B. Clarke, bases most of his ideas on the Ealingite premise that cinemagoers like "mild anarchy--the outrageous, childish things that we all wish we could do but can't." He wants the man in the audience to say: "That's me. I really am rather funny, aren't I?" Then, as one ridiculous situation follows another, the reaction should be: "I know this couldn't happen, you know it couldn't happen, but wouldn't it be nice if it could?"

After all, says Clarke, "everybody has thought some time or another about robbing a bank or shooting his relatives. Take one of those chaps whose honesty everybody takes for granted. Supposing he was all along planning a huge robbery? What would he do? What would I do myself?" But a touch of sanity usually pays off: "We avoid those comedies where everybody is mad. We try to keep our feet very much on the ground--or at least one toe."

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