Ealing Comedies and Counterculture in the UK

Abstract

My research will revolve around the social effects of Ealing comedies on Britain in the post war period. From 1947-1956, Ealing comedies were very popular films in Britain. The films I’ll be studying for this paper will include Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). A common theme that runs through both of these is an individual that is powerless, but takes action in order to control their own destiny. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is a critique of the Peerage System, and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) uses a similar approach in order to take on banking.

This theme is important because of the social implications it has on a generation of children and young adults who would go on to create a counter-culture movement in Britain in the 1960s. My belief is that the famed comedies made by Ealing Studios in early post-war Britain had a lasting effect on its youth by taking on major governmental and economic institutions, and helped cultivate a generation of dissenters who would subvert traditional English culture as well as inspire a rise in liberalism in the 1960s.