This Weekend's Binge Watch: Sir Alec Guinness and Ealing Studios

Determined to avoid the news AND the plague, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog continue the Brit-com bent that started with The Goons, The Pythons, The Two Ronnies and Alexei Sayle and now begin an Ealing Studios and Alec Guinness binge. Batting leadoff, just one of many outstanding movies starring the one, the only Sir Alec Guinness - The Horse's Mouth.



There is Kind Hearts & Coronets, in which Guinness plays eight incredibly disagreeable and loathsome characters with perfection. For this writer, the Ealing Studios masterpiece ranks high on the list of greatest feature films - and most wicked comedies - ever made.



Very much enjoyed seeing one of this blogger's favorite standup comedians, authors, B-movie historians and cartoon voice artists, Patton Oswalt, introduce and discuss Kind Hearts & Coronets, the black comedy to end all black comedies, as a TCM guest programmer.





As is the case with the great comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, there's no such thing as too many viewings of The Lavender Hill Mob.



The late, great Robert Osborne elaborates:



The Lavender Hill Mob is so cool, it even includes one of the earliest silver screen appearances of the iconic and always winsome Audrey Hepburn.



Another Alec Guinness vehicle we dearly love is The Man In The White Suit.





Next up: the brilliant black comedy The Ladykillers.



Alexander Mackendrick, the director of Whisky Galore!, The Man In The White Suit and The Ladykillers, was a master of the witty Ealing Comedies style, but also helmed an all-time favorite American film of the classic movie fans at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the warm and cozy Sweet Smell Of Success.





We're also quite fond of the ever-so-slightly less well known but very funny Passport To Pimlico.



We'd be remiss to not mention the classic 1949 Ealing Studios comedy that was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick, Whisky Galore!





Before watching another 15 or 20 Ealing Studios Productions, followed by several episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, we shall finish off today's post with this look at the Ealing Studios from the British Film Institute.