Archives: Production

Hue and Cry (1947) is a British film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Alastair Sim, Harry Fowler and Joan Dowling. It is generally considered to be the first of the Ealing comedies, although it is better characterised as a thriller for children. Shot almost entirely on location, it is now a notable historic document due to its vivid portrait of a London still showing the damage of the Second World War. London forms the backdrop of a crime-gangster plot which revolves around a working class children’s street culture and children’s secret clubs.

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is a 1947 British drama film directed by Alberto Cavalcanti and starring Cedric Hardwicke. The screenplay by John Dighton is based on the Charles Dickens novel The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839). This first sound screen adaptation of the book followed silent films released in 1903 and 1912.

The Loves of Joanna Godden is a 1947 British historical drama film directed by Charles Frend and produced by Michael Balcon. The screenplay was written by H. E. Bates and Angus MacPhail from the novel by Sheila Kaye-Smith. It stars Googie Withers, Jean Kent, John McCallum, Derek Bond, Chips Rafferty and Sonia Holm. Some scenes were shot by director Robert Hamer when Frend was ill, though he was uncredited. The music was composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Frieda is a 1947 British film, directed by Basil Dearden, screenplay by Angus MacPhail and Ronald Millar and was produced by Michael Balcon.

It Always Rains on Sunday is a 1947 British film adaptation of Arthur La Bern’s novel by the same name, directed by Robert Hamer. The film has been compared with the poetic realism movement in the French cinema of a few years earlier by the British writers Robert Murphy, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and Graham Fuller.

Against the Wind is a black-and-white British film directed by Charles Crichton and produced by Michael Balcon, released through Ealing Studios in 1948. Against the Wind is a World War II sabotage/resistance drama set in occupied Belgium, starring Robert Beatty, Jack Warner and Simone Signoret (in her first English-language film role).

Saraband for Dead Lovers (released in the United States. as Saraband) is a 1948 British historical drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Stewart Granger and Joan Greenwood. It is based on the novel by Helen Simpson. Set in seventeenth century Hanover, it depicts the doomed romance between Philip Christoph von Königsmarck and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the wife of the Elector of Hanover. Jim Morahan, William Kellner and Michael Relph were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction – Set Decoration, Color.