Dr. Thief
Desert Island Wine Pool
◎ Huang Zhe
There is a place name in england called ealing, located in the western suburbs of London. Because there are large secluded forests there, translators who strive for "Sindaya" often translate it as "Ealing". This year's North Film Festival also uses this translation to curate the "Ealing Comedy" section, and all the works were born in the most famous landmark in the region, the Ealing Studios.
Among several boutique units of this year's North Film Festival, Ealing comedy may be the most "raised in the deep unknown" group, six films - "Benevolence and Crown", "Desert Island Wine Pool", "Passport to Pimlico", "Man in White", "The Thug of Lavander Mountain" and "Dr. Thief", each of which is among the top 100 british films of the past century selected by the British Film School, and even "Twenty Best", Ealing comedy accounts for three of them, of which "Benevolence and Crown" ranks sixth, and "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Thirty-Nine Steps" and other blockbusters, such as "Great Prospects" and other famous works adapted side by side.
Produced by Ealing, the first of these six films in 1949 and the latest in 1955, represent an unprecedented golden age for comedy films. But it may be curious why it only appeared in Post-World War II Britain. Why is it that the coming is so turbulent and fierce, but it is so quiet and hurried when it goes?
Empire sunset
Mention black humor or black comedy, in the history of literature, it is generally believed that it began in the United States in the early 1960s. But at least in the field of film, just after the end of World War II, the Ealing Film Studio took the lead in opening the curtain on black comedy in Britain.
New artistic genres were born in periods of transformation and upheaval, and more than a decade before McCarthyism and the Beat generation took the historical stage in the New World, drastic changes in society and people's hearts took place in the old empire. Or rather, "a little British donkey shivering between an American bison and a polar bear" was the first outbreak of post-war syndrome.
The country is unfortunately a poet lucky. The thick-skinned Ealing filmmakers made 1949 an unprecedented year for comedy films — "Passport to Pimlico," "Desert Island Wine Pool" and "Kindness and The Crown," three masterpieces, which came out in the same year. In the history of world cinema, this is probably only comparable to Hollywood's 1994.
World War II made the sun that never set in the empire has already fallen to the west, and for the British people, the most intuitive feeling is the lack of living materials. Rationing was introduced in Britain, which began in 1940 and was not declared until 1954. Even West Germany, a defeated country, was relieved in 1951, and France, which surrendered early, did not suffer such a day. The pain of the British is vividly reflected in the Passport to Pimlico.
In the movie, it is found that it has inexplicably become a "foreign territory", and this old london neighborhood immediately becomes an island of freedom - what rations and curfews, hell go! Plenty of buying and selling and binge, only here. Of course, this soon caused protests and blockades from the authorities of the surrounding "neighboring countries", and the isolated islanders' fortified walls and fields also received the solidarity and feeding of their neighbors... Is such a scene familiar? In reality, the previous year, the first Berlin crisis had just broken out. It's just that Pimlico in the film quickly agreed with the British authorities and merged on an equal and friendly basis, a full forty years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
As for why Pimlico? The British, who had suffered from scarcity, decided not to live like this again as early as the end of the Second World War, determined to allocate the country's routes to improve people's livelihood through their own votes, so Churchill won the Second World War but lost the general election, and the Labor Party, which came to power in 1945, was headquartered in this neighborhood. The media also often uses Pimlico to refer to the Labour Party.
Set in the Scottish outlying islands of Desert Island Wine, the theme is also the growing material needs of the masses, the visible opponents are bureaucracy and dogma, and even the poker face of the anti-Number One Basil Radford has not been changed: it is better to let the stranded whisky ship sink than to leave the "water of life" to the locals, just because this way is illegal.
But since they are all out of London, they must have local characteristics. From Joan Greenwood, a high-class actress from a high-class family in London's Chelsea district, to the film's narration's originally common West End standard London tone, all changed to Scottish vernacular. The line is to the extreme of the British regional cannon and self-blackening skills: "The Scots play football to win, and we English people play for the game" "They can't even stop the German Navy, can they intercept the Scots for whisky?" ”
Black comedy is not only a close reflection of reality, turning tragic nutrients into sufficient jokes, but also a shocking reversal at the end, which is the default fine tradition of British film and television, especially comedy, and generally from this time it has become the norm. Although the Scottish villagers in "Desert Island Wine Pool" have won the victory in defending the "water of life" given by God, when they drink the last drop, that is, the day of suffering; only the male and female protagonists who eventually become dependents in the course of the struggle will always live in happiness, because they do not drink.
Order is rebuilt
Big Brother Britain still values meaningful things more than the "powerless power" that was common in the American style later, after all, it is deeply rooted in the traditions of Shakespeare and Dickens, and it is more accustomed to moral irony. This is especially true of "Benevolence and the Crown", and even the title of the film comes from the victorian poet laureate Tennyson's poem "Benevolence is more important than the crown".
The plot is a complete irony of this: the protagonist's mother resolutely lost the crown for benevolence, so the protagonist is determined to regain the lost crown, but every step is at the cost of abandoning the benevolence, but in the end, it is his accidental benevolence that is lost; but in turn, he is the obstacle and stepping stone on the way to the crown - who has the benevolence of those who have the crown?
It is said that the Victorian era, which is "superficially grandiose, a belly of male thieves and female prostitutes", did not end with the death of the Queen but in World War II. After the collapse of the former aristocratic system and class society, this comedy can be called Britain's deepest reflection and conscience, and it also permanently engraved the word Ealing for the crown of crime comedy.
After the collapse, there is always a rebuild. 1951's Man in White is both a microcosm of the shuffle era and a bold assumption of an unpredictable future. What made the previously contradictory and prejudiced upper class and the working class unprecedentedly agreed? The bigger enemy, of course. As a pioneer of science fiction comedy, the protagonist of the film, the man in white, represents both the scientific and technological revolution that is destined to change the traditional production methods and labor relations, and any human major change that does not know when it will come but will come.
The process of shuffling the cards is inevitably muddy, and there are always people who take risks in order to get something for nothing or a million profits. The 1953 film "The Thugs of The Mount Lavander" is an exaggerated but faithful portrayal: a group of good people from five elements and eight works, who come together for the common goal of making a windfall, commit a terrible robbery, but eventually lose a hundred secrets. Coincidentally, exactly ten years later in Britain, a robbery breaks out in reality: only the cash truck in the movie is replaced by a postal train, and the gold bars are replaced by pound cash; from the process to the result, even the fish that slipped through the net runs to Brazil, it is strikingly similar to the setting of the movie.
From "Benevolence and the Crown" to "The Man in White" to the last "thug" caught in the net, Alec Guinness transformed into "Old Woman Killer" in 1955 (translated as "Dr. Thief" at this year's North Film Festival). And this time, the "Three Gangs of a Thief King" includes Stanley Holloway, the first generation of heroes who transformed from song and dance light comedy with Ealing Films, and future superstars such as Peter Cyrus.
In the play, some of them are war victims, some have developed limbs and simple minds, and some are timid and afraid to drag their feet. In short, except for being led by the nose by the opponent and killing the useless pig teammates, not once was a heart, and the result was natural failure. Incidentally, the real British had just abandoned the Labour Party, which had been in power for ten years, on the grounds that this group of people with different compositions and different minds did not bring good welfare as the common people thought, but were busy walking in the old aristocratic order, and it was better to bring the Conservative Party and Churchill back.
As for their rival, the landlady, it was Katie Johnson, who had been acting in the 19th century. A typical Victorian house also has to be played by a typical Victorian person. Her victory without a fight seems to represent the truth or to side with the old forces of the old order. She won, but everyone didn't like her. Smiling at a baby scares people into tears; upholding the supreme moral code in one's heart can cause an entire street to erupt in a frenzy— is it like an old empire that is so "gloriously isolated" that leaves an isolated former colony with a bunch of troubles?
At the end of "Doctor Thief", the landlord and the old lady abandoned the black umbrella that caused countless troubles after the case was closed, which seemed to indicate that the "biggest" old woman representing Britain would have to "change her way of life" after crossing the waves. Ealing comedies also came to an end in glory: they were acquired by BBC to become its film division – at a time when television was like a beast devouring the film's turf, and comedy bore the brunt.
Ealing Heritage
The Ealing comedy has come to an end, but they originally had no big stars, but the stars they cultivated still shine on the big screen. Not to mention Hepburn, who played less than a minute of soy sauce in "The Thug of The Mountain Of Lavander", McKendrick, the director who returned to the United States to continue the road of film noir and began to teach apprentices, and the one-man guinness in "Benevolence and the Crown" who played the octagon to shock the world, and then continue his thousand-faced road: the Red Army general in "Doctor Zhivago", the desert chief in "Lawrence of Arabia", the captain of the death squad in "The Bridge on the River Kwai", and the future citizen in "Star Wars".
The "Thousand Faced Man" out of Ealing is not only Guinness, but also another future sir, Cyrus. In "Doctor Thief", he is still only a non-committal elementary school apprentice around the Thief King, to "Dr. Strange Love" in which one person plays a British colonel, the President of the United States and the former Nazi Doctor, and the playwright who plays multiple virtual characters in "Lolita", Cyrus and director Kubrick, have sealed the genius madman genre.
In this way, the best payloader of Ealing's comedy mantle, besides Cyrus, is probably Kubrick. He settled and worked here for many years because of his fascination with Britain.
I have consulted the British and Londoners who are still literary and artistic, and their first reaction when they heard Ealing was only "Wow, that is a rich area, a good school district", not the movie legend.