Saturday 13 July 2013

Passport to Pimlico (1949 Henry Cornelius)

Because it was so hot, Q insisted we should watch the heat wave-themed Passport to Pimlico, joyfully scripted by T.E.B. Clarke and mischievously scored by Georges Auric, for Ealing Studios.

Was Miramont Place real?

Dress shop owner Nancy Gabrielle to P.C. Philip Stainton:
"What have I been up to?"
"Make me blush to guess."

And Nancy again, to her son: "You'll have a sweet and like it!"

There's a wonderfully edited argument between two loudspeakers on vans.

Stanley Holloway is married to Barbara Murray ("You never know when you're well off until you aren't") and their daughter Betty Warren ("you didn't go to the door like that?") is being wooed by the Duke of Burgundy Paul Dupuis, to the consternation of fishmonger Sydney Tafler, who is in turn in the eye of his assistant Jane Hylton, who resorts to flirting (a bit) with a young Charles Hawtrey.

John Slater, Raymond Huntley,  the irrepressible Margaret Rutherford and Radford & Wayne also feature.

Funny to note in the list of goods they search the underground train for is 'hashish and unrefined opium'!

Clever, anti-authoritarian, substantively British comedy must have gone down a storm on release.



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