Definitive Ealing Studios - Vol 3

Four films from the legendary Ealing Studios. 'The Ladykillers' (1955) is the last of the Ealing comedies. Eccentric landlady Mrs Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) believes her new lodger, Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness), and his associates the Major (Cecil Parker), Louis (Herbert Lom), Harry (Peter Sellers) and One-Round (Danny Green) to be amateur musicians. However, they are in fact the perpetrators of a bank heist, looking to whisk their ill-gotten gains out of London. All goes well until Mrs Wilberforce is persuaded by Marcus to claim his 'trunk' from the station it is only then that the criminal genius' carefully laid plans begin to go awry... In 'The Man in the White Suit' (1951), eccentric Sidney Stratton (Alec Guiness) is a laboratory cleaner in a textile factory who invents a material that will neither wear out nor become dirty. Initially hailed as a great discovery, Sidney's astonishing invention is suffocated by the management when they realise that if it never wears out, people will only ever have to purchase one suit of clothing. 'The Magnet' (1950) is a gentle comedy about childhood, guilt and half-truths starring a young James Fox (then known by his real name, William Fox) as Johnny Brent, a mischievous boy who tricks a younger boy (Keith Robinson) into giving him his magnet in return for an 'invisible' clock. Having successfully obtained the magnet, Johnny immediately starts to feel guilty about his swindling behaviour. His guilt sparks a chain of misplaced assumptions that lead to a search being mounted for the boy, who has run away after becoming convinced that he is wanted for murder. John Mills stars in the docu-drama 'Scott of the Antractic' (1948), which captures the ill-fated final expedition to the South Pole in 1912 of British explorer Robert Scott. This classic drama highlights the problems which beset the journey, and is accompanied by the music of Vaughn Williams.