Hue and Cry was released in 1947, and is generally considered as the first Ealing Comedy, although it would probably be more accurate to describe it as a thriller for children.it is a bit like the Saturday Matinee short films put out by the NCFF (National Children's Film Foundation).
It tells the story of a group of east end kids who manage to foil a gang of robbers who use a comic story to pass on their plans to other gang members. The kids are not believed by the police, so they take affairs into their own hands.
In some ways it uses the basis of the popular children's story of the time called "Emil & the Detectives", which had been filmed in Germany in 1931.
In the film we meet two or three actors who were to become well known in later years - Alastair Sim, Harry Fowler and Jack Warner, who would become the much loved PC George Dixon in the TV Series "Dixon of Dock Green".
This was the first of seven comedies that the screen writer T E B Clark worked on for Ealing Studios, and it shaped the way for the Ealing Comedies we usually remember today, which showed the English community spirit and mild eccentricity.
Not the funniest of the Ealing Comedies, but one which accurately reflects the time in Britain immediately after the war.
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