Um País de Anedota

This very funny British comedy shows what might happen if a section of London, in this case Pimlico, were to declare itself independent from the rest of the UK and its laws, taxes & post-war restrictions. Merry mayhem is what would happen.

The explosion of a wartime bomb leads to the discovery of ancient documents which show that Pimlico was ceded to the Duchy of Burgundy centuries ago, a small historical footnote long since forgotten. To the new Burgundians, however, this is an unexpected opportunity to live as they please, free from any interference from Whitehall.

Stanley Holloway is excellent as the minor city politician who suddenly finds himself leading one of the world's tiniest nations. Dame Margaret Rutherford is a delight as the history professor who sides with Pimlico. Others in the stand-out cast include Hermione Baddeley, Paul Duplis, Naughton Wayne, Basil Radford & Sir Michael Hordern.

Welcome to Burgundy!

This Ealing comedy, like so many others, has such an interesting and entertaining story that you don't always notice the clever and rather perceptive touches. It takes an unlikely, bizarre situation and makes it completely believable, just by drawing things out to their logical extremes. A solid cast and a good dose of British dry wit also help out.

Stanley Holloway heads the cast, as one of a small group of Londoners who, as the result of an offbeat chain of events, find themselves declared subjects of Burgundy. As things proceed, one wacky development after another follows, but each one is simply a perfectly logical (or perhaps perfectly illogical) extension of the previous one.

It's a fine satire on the whole structure of arbitrary procedures and policies that go along with governments, borders, and the like. It also focuses its share of attention on human nature in general, since the hapless but sympathetic 'Burgundians' also have their own foibles. It works by creating sympathy for them simply because they are normal, everyday people like the rest of us, caught up in an unprecedented situation.

The settings are the kind of straightforward, convincing sets that you usually expect from Ealing, and they help in creating the contrast between daily life and the unexpected disruptions that the characters now face. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne also add quite a bit, as a pair of high-level bureaucrats who seem more interested in deflecting responsibility than in getting problems solved. Things fit together quite well to make a movie that is enjoyable and insightful at the same time.

Brace yourself for a shock - according to a recently-discovered and authentic legal document that is centuries old, Brooklyn belongs to Iceland! Consequently, people travelling to and from Brooklyn must now carry a passport or visa, declare items of value at the Brooklyn Customs points, and perhaps even converse in Icelandic!

It is a similar, mind-bending assumption (with hilarious practical implications) that British viewers have to make when watching "Passport to Pimlico" (a London district near Buckingham Palace, no less). In the film, much of Pimlico (or "Burgundy" as it is now called) looks like a bomb-site, which it probably was still at that time in the aftermath of World War II.

As one of the so-called "Ealing comedies", it ranks alongside other films in this group like "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "The Lavender Hill Mob" which parody - but in an affectionate way - various aspects of British social life. Conversation is always very parochial and petty. At the same time, this film preserves certain other conventions of the time - for example, there really was a restriction on how much money people could take out of Britain which lasted until the 1970s. In "Passport to Pimlico", people travelling on the underground railway have to declare there currency at the "Burgundy" Customs points. Above all, Margaret Rutherford stands out as the unworldly history professor with sweeping convictions. This charming films preserves a way of life which, though long gone, is not forgotten.

A bustling and, it is implied, unscrupulous gaggle of Britons waddles its way into the freshly, sloppily partitioned nation of Burgundy. For the new Burgundians, opportunity knocks on one door, while confusion beats down another. The cacophonous Nazi explosion that created Burgundy (and buried Pimlico) is now rivaled by the vociferous crowd, swarming through the former British district like Bedouins over the dunes of Arabia.

T. E. B. Clarke's screenplay, "Passport to Pimlico," in its superior comedic handling of legal, logistical and practical civil nightmares, is one of best political parodies ever filmed. Like Clarke's later "The Lavender Hill Mob," "Passport" holds its knot to British underpinnings of dignity and grace under pressure; what remains so comedic about both stories, however, is the loss of such maintained hegemony. The direction, by veteran Henry Cornelius ("I Am a Camera," dramatic basis of "Cabaret"), is sure, confident in a way that resembles the careful work of a helmer filming a story of his own, which, in fact, he is (a conceptual collaboration with Clarke). It has been said that the two based their outline of "Passport to Pimlico" on the Canadian government's gift of a provincial `room' to the Netherlands.

"Passport" is a great, funny, touching film, well known to subject historians and critics, worthy of popular re-discovery.

They say that the Ealing era was the British film industry's finest hour. Today, they are certainly dated but in an inventive, often very funny way. Not quaint, nor sloppy, nor nostalgic. As such they are all very watchable (& enjoyable)

"Passport to..." to my mind, is the best that depicts the street level London directly after the War, with the close-knit community rallying round, but with that 'spirit' that saw them through the Blitz. So, there's wheeling and dealing, pushing their luck, practical jokes and a broad humour that's infectious.

The story is absolute mumbo-jumbo nonsense with the subliminal message mocking the bureaucratic minefield that was necessary in shaping a devastated Britain - and London. Job's worth petty rules fly in the face of common sense.

To my mind, this is the best Ealing that snapshots a time and a place - many of the scenes are shot out in the bombed-cleared areas rather than the studio. The cast are a ragbag of the well-knowns of the time and many, many extras from young ruffians to bowler-hatted officials. It's fun and can be watched many times over. This must be at least my sixth.

It must have seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time - years of the Ministries commanding everyone in that 'proper', clipped voice, about every little detail - which they all knew they had to dutifully do. And now, we can all have a 'right larf'! at their expense.