Released four years earlier, Ealing's first colour film is an unabashed celebration of post-war optimism, community spirit, the glories of rural England, and the romance of the railways.

And so, it came to an end. Not with a whimper, but with a bang: Passport to Pimlico, one of the best known 'Ealing comedies', one of the films that (it is claimed) speaks for the whole of the studio's output and thematic interests, and one of the films that first sparked my love of Ealing many years ago.

For a studio whose reputation is so rooted in realism, Ealing enjoyed dabbling with fantasy, from dream sequences in Let George Do It (1941) and The L...

When it comes to the well-known Ealing comedies, those six or seven films that - for many people - define what 'Ealing' means within British film culture, it is difficult for me to pick a favourite.