Archives: Production

Another Shore is a 1948 Ealing Studios comedy film/tragedy filmed in Ireland. It stars Robert Beatty as Gulliver Shields, an Irish customs official who dreams of living on a South Sea island; particularly Rarotonga. It is based on the book by Justice Kenneth Reddin. Robert Beatty was a Canadian actor who had a major success playing an IRA man in Odd Man Out.

Scott of the Antarctic is a 1948 technicolour film which depicts Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition and his attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole in Antarctica. John Mills played Scott, with a supporting cast which included James Robertson Justice, Derek Bond, Kenneth More, John Gregson, Barry Letts and Christopher Lee. Produced by Ealing Studios, the film was directed by Charles Frend and largely shot at the studios, with some landscape and glacier exteriors shot in the Swiss Alps and in Norway; no actual scenes were made in Antarctica, though some pre-war stock footage from Graham Land may have been used. The film was made in Technicolor. The script was by Ivor Montagu, Walter Meade and the novelist Mary Hayley Bell, Mills’ wife. The film is also known for its score by Ralph Vaughan Williams that was later reworked into his Sinfonia antartica. The film is largely faithful to the real events of the ill-fated polar trek, with emphasis on the stoic character of Scott and the hostility of the Antarctic environment.

Eureka Stockade is a 1949 British film of the story surrounding Peter Lalor and the gold miners’ rebellion of 1854 at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria. It was produced by Ealing Studios and directed by Harry Watt.

Passport to Pimlico is a 1949 British comedy film made by Ealing Studios and starring Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Hermione Baddeley. It was directed by Henry Cornelius and written by T. E. B. Clarke. The story concerns the unearthing of treasure and documents that lead to a small part of Pimlico to be declared a legal part of the House of Burgundy, and therefore exempt from the post-war rationing or other bureaucratic restrictions active in Britain at the time.

Whisky Galore! is a 1949 British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. It was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick; the screenplay was by Compton MacKenzie, based on his 1947 novel Whisky Galore. The story – based on a true event – concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island, the inhabitants of which have run out of whisky; the islanders find out the ship is carrying 50,000 cases of whisky, which they salvage, against the opposition of the local Customs and Excise men.

Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy film. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays nine characters. The plot is loosely based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907) by Roy Horniman. It concerns Louis D’Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After her death Louis decides to take revenge on the family, and to take the dukedom, by murdering the eight people ahead of him in succession to the title.

Train of Events is a 1949 British portmanteau film made by Ealing Studios and directed by Sidney Cole, Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden. It tells the story about a train that crashes into a stalled petrol tanker at a level (grade) crossing, and then flashes back and tells four different stories about some of the passengers before the crash.

A Run for Your Money is a 1949 Ealing Studios comedy film starring Donald Houston and Meredith Edwards as two Welshmen visiting London for the first time. The supporting cast includes Alec Guinness, Moira Lister and Hugh Griffith.

Birds of Prey, also known in the United States as The Perfect Alibi, is a 1930 British mystery film produced and directed by Basil Dean, from a screenplay he co-wrote with A.A. Milne from Milne’s play which was known as The Perfect Alibi in the United States and The Fourth Wall in the United Kingdom. The film starred Dorothy Boyd, Robert Loraine, Warwick Ward, C. Aubrey Smith and Frank Lawton, and was produced at Beaconsfield Studios by Associated Talking Pictures.

A Honeymoon Adventure is a 1931 British thriller film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Benita Hume, Peter Hannen and Harold Huth. Written in collaboration by Rupert Downing and Basil Dean, it follows a brilliant scientist and his wife who go on honeymoon to Scotland where they are nearly kidnapped by agents of a foreign power. The film was shot at Beaconsfield Studios. Location shooting, including the railway scenes took place in Scotland.