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Passport to Pimlico
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Film Movement Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (27th March 2020). |
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The Film
 Oscar (Best Writing, Story and Screenplay): T.E.B. Clarke (nominated) - Academy Awards, 1950 BAFTA Film Award Best British Film (nominated) - BAFTA Awards, 1950 Pamela, the last unexploded German bomb in England is in Miramont Gardens, Pimlico and due to be moved to a museum for an exhibition on local arts and culture; that is, until another last bomb is discovered, whereupon orders come down to blow Pamela up. The local mischief makers, however, get to it first, accidentally letting a wheel roll down the street and into the pit setting off the explosion. Shop keeper Arthur Pemberton (Brief Encounter's Stanley Holloway), who has been trying to get the town council to agree to develop the blown-up ruins of Miramont Gardens into a park with an open air swimming pool, falls into the pit and finds a gold coin in the rubble. He returns that night with his daughter Shirley (Doctor at Large's Barbara Murray) and they discover a cave full of treasure and artwork along with a manuscript that turns out to be a British royal charter as authenticated by Professor Hatton-Jones (Blithe Spirit's Margaret Rutherford) proclaiming the house that once stood on Miramont Gardens to the last Duke of Burgundy who sought refuge in Britain after the 1477 Battle of Nancy. With a treasure up for grabbing despite Pemberton discovering it, several of the locals put their children up as the cause of the explosion that unearthed it. Local bank branch manager Mr. Wix (Room at the Top's Raymond Huntley) allows the treasure to be kept in the bank, and proclaims Pimlico as part of Burgundy rather than Britain when a representative of the head office tries to take over. The other locals become accepting of the idea that they are actually French when it means that they can do away with ration books, identity cards, and the black market goes public while also giving Pembrook the go ahead to build his swimming pool. When Pemberton, Wix, and other local representatives including police constable Spiller (The Ladykillers' Philip Stainton), dress show owner Edie Randall (Mary Poppins' Hermione Baddeley), and newly arrived heir to the duke/Riviera hotel waiter Sιbastien de Charolais (Sleeping Car to Trieste's Paul Dupuis) discover that they cannot deal with the British government without forming their own representative committee; whereupon they fall out with the Home Office about becoming part of England again over claim of the Duke of Burgundy's treasure. The British authorities personified by Straker (Dead of Night's Naunton Wayne) of the Home Office and Gregg (Whisky Galore!'s Basil Radford) of the Foreign Office trying to push responsibility onto each other's department and then onto others erect a border around Miramont Gardens, and the locals are unable to leave because they have torn up their identity cards. They retaliate by stopping an underground train that passes underneath them and demanding passports (ironically, it is only the foreign tourists who can produce them); whereupon the British government decides to starve the Burgundians out and the residents of Miramont Gardens turn their Blitz Spirit onto outsmarting and outmaneuvering their former countrymen.  Like several of Ealing Studios' best comedies, Passport to Pimlico penned by T.E.B. Clarke (The Lavender Hill Mob) looks at the United Kingdom as a society in the context of either World War II or its immediate aftermath, particularly those daily affected by rationing, bombed-out neighborhoods, black market underselling, and "London can take it" propaganda while making buffoons of those who are either more privileged or corrupt enough to skim off the top like this film's government functionaries who waffle over the standoff between Britain and Burgundy in terms of public relations ("Well, we can't let them starve to death," says one, and the other response, "We can't not let them starve to death") with the later remark that one had not "had a decent feed since that last deadlock in Moscow" suggesting that their ineffectuality is a strategy for maintaining their status while doing nothing. While conflict does arise, with Wix more interested in holding onto the treasure, Spiller having to choose between being the laughing stock he always was or joining in on the anarchy, and the black market undercutting Edie's sales of leggings and dresses, Pimlico's vacation from being British does allow social divisions to fall away for better or worse. Pembrook and the representative committee try to distinguish their freedoms from the anarchy of the rest of the locals but find themselves in the thick of it when the British make no such distinctions, and they must all work together to get food and water from the outside world. Black marketer Fred Cowan (The Spy Who Loved Me's Sydney Tafler) becomes as respectable as any other as do his goods while Molly (Circus of Horrors' Jane Hylton), the wife of fish vendor Frank Huggins (It Always Rains on Sunday's John Slater), starts a public flirtation with the Duke of Burgundy; to be fair, she remains infatuated with him even when he reveals he has no money, and Frank does find a more down-to-Earth partner in a more innocent flirtation that had once riled his wife. The framing of the film examines this brief period of Pimlico's exile from Britain as a historical event in documentary style with an disorienting opening sequence in which we at first appear to be somewhere on the continent with a radio program of Latin music, people taking siestas in the summer heat, and introducing Molly sunbathing before a tracking shot reveals a London street. The documentary aspect is reintroduced late in the film as the conflict hits the paper and then the nation's conscience as a theater newsreel with the spin of Pimlico as underdog; although it takes child gawkers treating the residents of Pimlico likes zoo animals and throwing oranges to them over the fence for the rest of the country to act (and the realization that their maneuvers can only get them so far for the Burgundians to go back to the negotiation table). The new Film Movement theatrical trailer for the film calls it a "hilarious precursor to Brexit," although American viewers might be more likely to see the film as the possible inspiration for the Family Guy episode E. Peterbus Unum in which Peter takes advantage of the discovery that his property is not technically part of the United States to declare his house and yard the sovereign nation of Petoria and then use diplomatic immunity to make an ass, or arse, of himself by flagrantly disobeying American laws. 
Video
Released theatrically in the United States by Eagle-Lion Films, a British/American company once owned by J. Arthur Rank and subsequently acquired by PRC Pictures, Passport to Pimlico did not get another release stateside until 2005 in Anchor Bay's Ealing Studios Comedy Collection. The film made its Blu-ray debut in the U.K. in 2012 from Studio Canal, and that master is presumably the source from Film Movement's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen Blu-ray. The restoration seems to have come from inferior materials. The image is overall soft with the best detail in close-ups, and grayish blacks and off-whites, looking somewhat for most of the film as films of this period do during opticals like titles and transitions. The film is still enjoyable, although it is not as sterling a restoration as one could hope (and unlikely to be bested unless there is a UHD demand for Ealing). 
Audio
The only audio option is an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 mono track that delivers clean dialogue and undistorted music cues, but the mix is not very demanding, and faint hiss can be detected in the silences. Unlike the U.K. Blu-ray, there are no SDH subtitles.
Extras
Extras are ported over from the Studio Canal release, starting with an interview with BFI curator Mark Duguid (7:09) who notes that the film was one of three comedies from Ealing in 1949 the other two being Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets while the studio was trying to find its footing in the industry, as well as the wartime and post-war themes of the studio's comedies. A locations featurette with film historian Richard Dacre (4:19) visits the actual shooting locations on Lambeth Road between Lambeth Palace the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Imperial War Museum. The disc also includes a behind the scenes stills gallery (1:50) and restoration comparison (6:54). Neither the original trailer from the U.K. Blu-ray or the new one prepared by Film Movement seen on other releases and online have been included. 
Packaging
Packaged with the disc is a booklet by film scholar Ronald Bergen about the studio's onging themes and the repertory company of actors and crew who appeared in the film.
Overall
Film Movement's Blu-ray of Passport to Pimlico allows the film to be appreciated for itself as a comedy as well as for speculation as to whether it really is a "hilarious precursor to Brexit."
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