THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT (1953) *** See, this is why the world needs Ealing Studios. Nationalities contribute to the corpus internationale of cinema in accordance with their conception of the cosmos: Hollywood blows all of humanity out of proportion, the French accentuate the bizarre, Scandinavians lend their lunar Lutheran lighting to psychological lamentations, and it is the natural role of the British to point to simple, warm, wonderful, gentle things. I've read reviews bewailing that the film depicts "an England that is no more," but the reality is that, like every other film ever made, it depicts a reality that never was. There may have been a bit more of this sort of thing about at one time, but it was never like this really, was it? Which is why it's film magic, straight and simple. For those of us who have wondered what could possibly be good about the British aristocracy, Stanley Holloway puts over-paid to the question. He is brilliant every time that he opens his mouth and his approach to the changing world around him-more bemused than stoic or disinterested, and quite prepared to effect change whenever it might indulge his ethereal concerns-is at a level more than worthy of admiration. That his approach might not speak to some of us as directly as that of, say, Keith Richards or Voltaire, is really of little concern so far as he can tell, and anyway, surely there's something nice that can be done in any event. The cast is excellent in an extremely understated way without exception, as is Charles Crichton, and the irony that Technicolor works so beautifully on the countryside is so predominantly peripheral as to never be entirely lost or resolved.
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