PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949)

Ealing Studios, around since the ‘30s, led by producer Michael Balcon for over a decade, found their distinctive voice (and to a large extent the voice Americans think of as post-war Britain) in this lightly satiric comedy about a London nab gone topsy-turvy when an ancient treaty, found by happenstance after an unexploded German bomb is harmlessly triggered by local urchins, claims the area as Burgundian territory.  No more ration cards.  No more early pub closings.  No taxes.  No restrictions on contraband.  Yippee!  On the other hand: no police protection, no public utilities, no travel without going thru customs.  Yikes!  Prolific Ealing scripter T.E.B. Clarke worked it all up: clever story, sharp dialogue, lovable characters (not a villain in sight; even Raymond Huntley, local Pimlico killjoy, joining in, while London government ministers repped by comic-duo Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne, less bedeviling than befuddled) while debuting helmer Henry Cornelius does a bang-up job; keeping pace & narrative flowing while staging street-shop action & teeming tenement life in multiplane layers.  With Stanley Holloway’s team-leader Everyman and Margaret Rutherford’s eccentric historian perfectly cast, the film is a modest treasure.  First of a 1949 trio joined by Balcon’s next two, WHISKEY GALORE and KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (for your suggested TRIPLE-BILL), to establish the international rep of the little house of Ealing.