Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios
Main page
2258292

Ealing Studios

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Ealing Studios

Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in west London, England. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since. It is the oldest continuously working studio facility for film production in the world, and the current stages were opened for the use of sound in 1931.

It is best known for a series of classic films produced in the post-WWII years, including Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Passport to Pimlico (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), and The Ladykillers (1955). The BBC owned and filmed at the Studios for forty years from 1955 until 1995.

Since 2000, Ealing Studios has resumed releasing films under its own name, including the revived St Trinian's franchise. In more recent times, films shot there include The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) and Shaun of the Dead (2004), as well as The Theory of Everything (2014), The Imitation Game (2014), Burnt (2015) and Devs (2020). Interior scenes of the British period drama television series Downton Abbey were shot in Stage 2 of the studios. The Met Film School London operates on the site.

The site was first occupied by Will Barker Studios from 1902. From 1929, it was acquired by theatre producer Basil Dean, who founded Associated Talking Pictures Ltd. He was joined on the management level by Stephen Courtauld and Reginald Baker. In 1931, they built Ealing Studios, transferring all production there in December of that year. When Dean left in 1938 to be replaced by Michael Balcon from MGM, about 60 films had been made at the studios. Balcon discontinued the ATP name and began to issue films under the Ealing Studios name. In 1944, the company was taken over by the Rank Organisation.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the facility as ATP and then Ealing Studios produced many comedies with stars such as Gracie Fields, George Formby, Stanley Holloway and Will Hay, who had established their reputations in other spheres of entertainment. The company was also instrumental in the use of documentary film-makers to make more realistic war films. These included Went the Day Well? (1942), The Foreman Went to France (1942), Undercover (1943), and San Demetrio London (1943). In 1945, the studio made its chiller compendium Dead of Night.

In the post-war period, the company embarked on a series of comedies which became the studio's hallmark. These were often lightly satirical and were seen to reflect aspects of British character and society. The first was Hue and Cry (1947) and the last Barnacle Bill (1956).

The best remembered Ealing films were produced between 1948 and 1955: Whisky Galore! (1949), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953), The Cruel Sea (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955) are all regarded as classics of British cinema.

The BBC bought the studios on Ealing Green in 1955, for £300,000, though productions bearing the Ealing name continued to be made at the MGM British Studios at Borehamwood for two years.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.