Passport to Pimlico (1949)

UK
Feature Film
Director: Henry Cornelius
Writer: T.E.B. Clarke
Cinematographer: Lionel Banes
Composer: Georges Auric
Cast: Stanley Holloway, Betty Warren, Barbara Murray, Paul Dupuis, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Philip Stainton, Margaret Rutherford, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne

This charming Ealing comedy, both a celebration of, and an attack against Britishness, manages to be both whimsical and, antithetically, realist in its depiction of the lives of ordinary people in post-war London. The story kicks into life when an unexploded German bomb is accidentally set off by youthful tomfoolery. The explosion reveals a collection of hidden treasure and documents that state that the area is part of Burgundy. “Blimey, I’m a foreigner!” The residents of Burgundy soon cotton on to the advantages of this situation: licensing laws, betting laws, rationing - pah! “this is Burgundy!” Or at least, at first they appear to be advantages. Before they know it, word has spread and Burgundy has become a spiv’s paradise. A panicked British Government strives to remedy the embarrassing situation. What results is a celebration of idiosyncrasy and an attack against bureaucracy, two peculiarly British traits. Hugely entertaining.