Ealing comedies to be brought to a new generation

Some of the best loved films in the history of British cinema, the black and white Ealing comedies, have been restored for re-release next month.

Six classic comedies from the Ealing stable including The Ladykillers and The Lavender Hill Mob have been digitally remastered to mark 100 years of film-making in the London borough of Ealing.

The feature films were shot in the 1940s and 1950s and are regarded by many as representative of a golden period in UK cinema history.

The distributor, Optimum, hopes the sharper prints will endear them to a generation of movie-goers who are unlikely to have seen them at the cinema. Danny Perkins, a spokesman for Optimum, which has previously re-released classics such as The Third Man, said: "They have been completely restored in striking prints that are as good as they were when they were first issued.

"In our experience, a lot of people are interested in film. But they have never seen films like these on the big screen and love the idea of seeing them as they were intended to be seen."

The movies star some of the biggest names in British comedy including Alec Guinness, Sid James, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers and Frankie Howerd.

Ealing, in west London, had already enjoyed five decades of film-making before the other four on Optimum's list – Kind Hearts and Coronets, Whisky Galore!, Passport to Pimlico and The Man in the White Suit – were made.

Britain's studios were founded to the west of London because the wind direction meant the air was clearer than the east, which suffered the effects of the capital's coal fires.

George Perry, author of Forever Ealing, a history of the studios, said Will Barker was the first film-maker in the district when he moved there in 1902 and built a greenhouse as his studio. Barker's pioneering efforts, some of which are held in the National Film and Television Archive, eventually ended in his bankruptcy.

But they also led to the establishment of the Ealing Studios, where a film-maker, Basil Dean, and colleagues, made stars of George Formby and Gracie Fields, before the producer Michael Balcon took over and the glory years began.

Mr Perry said: "The Ealing comedies were remarkable, first of all because they were funny and also because they were very British in their way." Only a third of Ealing's films were actually comedies, he added.

After a period when the Ealing studios looked set to be sold off, they are now thriving with a two-year co-production deal with the American studio Miramax. A new version of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest with Judi Dench, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon has just been made there.

Even the pub where Alec Guinness and Sid James used to drink is getting in on the revival. The Red Lion, opposite the studios, re-opens later this month after refurbishment, just in time for fans to take in a pint after a trip down memory lane to the cinema.