In a church choir practice, a smaller Scottish boy, Alec (Douglas Barr), has his boys’ comic magazine confiscated and thrown out the window by the vicar. Georges Auric’s sprightly music emphasizes child’s play, although the implication is that such play leads to war, and these children play amid the destruction caused by such antics writ large. Some boys are stationed atop bombed-out ruins in the background and some are passing before a foreground brick wall upon which the credits are chalked as graffiti, complete with cheeky remarks. The film opens with boys throwing rocks at each other, playing war. Sometimes described as the first of the studio’s famous postwar comedies, it is and it isn’t, and that’s as fair as we can get.įirst, the plot. If Sim only made the one Ealing film, at least it’s a crucial one. The earliest title in the box is Sim’s only film for Ealing Studios, and that means the box partakes in this year’s unveiling of many Ealing restorations on Blu-ray. Hue and Cry (1947) Director: Charles CrichtonĪlastair Sim as Felix H. Perhaps that deplorable situation can be partly remedied by Film Movement Classics’Īlastair Sim’s School for Laughter, a Blu-ray gathering of four films that showcase his droll talent. Unfortunately, Sim’s career isn’t as well known in the US as he deserves because most of his films haven’t circulated well in Region 1 during the video era. Such things feel more expected in comedy, and Sim was a master comedian. He belongs to those actors sometimes accused of “hamming it up” because they work at such a high level of internal and external technique that they can’t help standing out. Sim captures the role’s sly, crabby wit as well or better than any other actor, and also the hidden depths of a man who must and can change. He’s famous for starring in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, called Scrooge in the UK and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. Alastair Sim is a distinctive and eccentric example of a rare brand of character actor, always good and often great, who at his best can convince you he’s among the finest actors in cinema.
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