For the British those old black and white Ealing comedies, which BBC2 is to screen every afternoon for a week from 6 April, are a bit like Dickens’ novels. We feel we know them pretty well, and we certainly believe we are familiar with the postwar, spirit-rousing world they come from. But there’s always at least one film that has slipped the memory. For me, it is The Titfield Thunderbolt. I can remedy that by watching it on 8 April. Made in 1953 it is about a rural fight to retain a railway branch line.
Yet even the titles we remember better, perhaps The Lavender Hill Mob, Whiskey Galore! or The Man in the White Suit, contain oddly uncomfortable moments that don’t fit with the cosy, music hall reputation of this moment in cinema history. This is what makes them worth watching.
After a major global event, when the game changes for good, questions of social morality are foregrounded. They become part of daily decision-making, rather than issues to be chewed over in radio discussions or analysed by academics. Suddenly, who has done what, and to whom, is visible in sharp relief and, perhaps especially on screen in black and white, ethical grey areas become crucial plot points. Does science always help us out? Are trade unions ever a brake on progress? Do criminals flourish without guilt?
If this season whets the appetite, look elsewhere for the first film, Hue and Cry, about children defeating evil in the rubble of bombed London, or for the scintillating and darkly droll Kind Hearts and Coronets.
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