Ealing Studios has a special place in British film history. The studio became internationally recognised for its Ealing comedies, including Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore!, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers. These films portrayed post-war Britain through a mix of humour, sharp social commentary and quiet rebellion. They often featured quirky small towns fighting bureaucracy, polite criminals getting caught and ordinary people finding their inner rebellion.
Each of these films of course had their very own, imaginative poster. The posters made for Ealing were every bit as distinctive as the films themselves. In a time when film posters often relied on prominent star portraits, dramatic scenes from the production and crowded blocks of billing, Ealing’s advertising department took a different route. Under the direction of S. John Woods, the studio commissioned artists, illustrators and graphic designers whose work often sidestepped conventional film advertising altogether.
Woods, who had trained as an artist and graphic designer before working in advertising – including a stint at Twentieth Century Fox in the 1930s – joined Ealing in 1943 to help realise the vision of the studio’s chief publicist, Monja Danischewsky. Together, they helped create an advertising culture in which the poster could be interpretive rather than merely descriptive; rather than a scene from the film, a designed response to its tone, setting or central idea.
Like Shell and London Transport before them, Ealing treated the posters as a space for serious design, bringing in figures such as John Piper, Edward Bawden, Tom Eckersley, James Fitton, Ronald Searle, Reginald Mount and others. The results were bold, witty and sometimes intentionally uncommercial – posters that did not simply sell a film, but translated its atmosphere into graphic form. The posters themselves can be considered as pieces of art from a collection. We selected 10 or our favourite to share and explore with you.
1
Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)
Director: Robert Hamer
Starring: Googie Withers, Mervyn Johns, Gordon Jackson, Jean Ireland
Set in Victorian Brighton, Pink String and Sealing Wax is a family melodrama full of frustrated desire and murder. The film follows the strained household of a strict chemist and the dangerous consequences that unfold when his son becomes entangled with a pub landlady trapped in a violent marriage.
The poster was designed by John Piper, one of the leading British artists of the mid-20th century. Rather than presenting Brighton as a cheerful seaside resort, Piper drew on the town’s Regency architecture, Victorian shopfronts and faded decorative details to create something more atmospheric and unsettling. It was a natural fit for an artist fascinated by Britain’s architectural past. During the war, Piper had travelled across the country recording churches, streets and historic buildings threatened by bombing and modernisation.
2
Hue and Cry (1947)
Director: Charles Crichton
Starring: Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Valerie White, Harry Fowler
Often described as the first true Ealing comedy, Hue and Cry follows a group of London schoolboys who discover that criminals are using a children’s comic to send coded messages. Rather than waiting for the adults to solve the mystery, the boys organise themselves into a comic-book army and set out to defeat the crooks.
The poster for Hue and Cry shows how Ealing’s advertising department could match a film to an artist whose visual language felt completely natural to the film’s world. Edward Bawden was a painter, illustrator and graphic designer whose work for the Curwen Press, Shell, London Transport and Fortnum & Mason was witty, economical and unmistakably English. His restricted palette of blue, black and white, punctuated by vivid red and yellow, gives the poster clarity and energy.
Writing for the BFI, curator Nathalie Morris declared Hue and Cry her favourite Ealing Studios poster:
“S. John Woods gave Bawden a completely free hand. He was sent still photographs but didn’t visit the set or see the completed film before designing the poster. Bawden later wondered if he should have been given more guidance, but I don’t think so. The poster manages to be quintessentially Bawden-esque while also conveying something of the film and the moment at which it was made. Director Charles Crichton was delighted with the result, feeling it perfectly captured the atmosphere he was trying to create, and the pair were successfully matched again for 1953’s The Titfield Thunderbolt.”
2
Hue and Cry (1947)
Director: Charles Crichton
Starring: Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Valerie White, Harry Fowler
Often described as the first true Ealing comedy, Hue and Cry follows a group of London schoolboys who discover that criminals are using a children’s comic to send coded messages. Rather than waiting for the adults to solve the mystery, the boys organise themselves into a comic-book army and set out to defeat the crooks.
The poster for Hue and Cry shows how Ealing’s advertising department could match a film to an artist whose visual language felt completely natural to the film’s world. Edward Bawden was a painter, illustrator and graphic designer whose work for the Curwen Press, Shell, London Transport and Fortnum & Mason was witty, economical and unmistakably English. His restricted palette of blue, black and white, punctuated by vivid red and yellow, gives the poster clarity and energy.
Writing for the BFI, curator Nathalie Morris declared Hue and Cry her favourite Ealing Studios poster:
“S. John Woods gave Bawden a completely free hand. He was sent still photographs but didn’t visit the set or see the completed film before designing the poster. Bawden later wondered if he should have been given more guidance, but I don’t think so. The poster manages to be quintessentially Bawden-esque while also conveying something of the film and the moment at which it was made. Director Charles Crichton was delighted with the result, feeling it perfectly captured the atmosphere he was trying to create, and the pair were successfully matched again for 1953’s The Titfield Thunderbolt.”
1
Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)
Director: Robert Hamer
Starring: Googie Withers, Mervyn Johns, Gordon Jackson, Jean Ireland
Set in Victorian Brighton, Pink String and Sealing Wax is a family melodrama full of frustrated desire and murder. The film follows the strained household of a strict chemist and the dangerous consequences that unfold when his son becomes entangled with a pub landlady trapped in a violent marriage.
The poster was designed by John Piper, one of the leading British artists of the mid-20th century. Rather than presenting Brighton as a cheerful seaside resort, Piper drew on the town’s Regency architecture, Victorian shopfronts and faded decorative details to create something more atmospheric and unsettling. It was a natural fit for an artist fascinated by Britain’s architectural past. During the war, Piper had travelled across the country recording churches, streets and historic buildings threatened by bombing and modernisation.
2
Hue and Cry (1947)
Director: Charles Crichton
Starring: Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Valerie White, Harry Fowler
Often described as the first true Ealing comedy, Hue and Cry follows a group of London schoolboys who discover that criminals are using a children’s comic to send coded messages. Rather than waiting for the adults to solve the mystery, the boys organise themselves into a comic-book army and set out to defeat the crooks.
The poster for Hue and Cry shows how Ealing’s advertising department could match a film to an artist whose visual language felt completely natural to the film’s world. Edward Bawden was a painter, illustrator and graphic designer whose work for the Curwen Press, Shell, London Transport and Fortnum & Mason was witty, economical and unmistakably English. His restricted palette of blue, black and white, punctuated by vivid red and yellow, gives the poster clarity and energy.
Writing for the BFI, curator Nathalie Morris declared Hue and Cry her favourite Ealing Studios poster:
“S. John Woods gave Bawden a completely free hand. He was sent still photographs but didn’t visit the set or see the completed film before designing the poster. Bawden later wondered if he should have been given more guidance, but I don’t think so. The poster manages to be quintessentially Bawden-esque while also conveying something of the film and the moment at which it was made. Director Charles Crichton was delighted with the result, feeling it perfectly captured the atmosphere he was trying to create, and the pair were successfully matched again for 1953’s The Titfield Thunderbolt.”