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COPYRIGHT 2004 South Florida Sun-Sentinal
Byline: Sean Piccoli
Before the Monty Python crew gave us humble Men of Yorkshire, before Peter Cook and Dudley Moore made mincemeat of the upper crust, there was another creative shop that specialized in British comedy. Ealing Studios, in fact, arguably invented the movie version of it, using the big screen to satirize a culture's habits and sacred cows, with a wit that ranged from blithe to black.
From 1947 to 1955, the London studio put out several popular and well-reviewed movies that came to be known as "Ealing comedies." The last of these was "The Ladykillers," and it is the first to be remade. But the just-released American update, if it does well, could spark a run on the century-old studio's vaults. Two more Ealing originals already have been optioned for remakes: the shipwreck farce "Whisky Galore!" (1949) and the murderous estate comedy "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949).
The stage looks set, if not for an Ealing stampede, then at least a renewed celebration of the studio's quietly influential body of work.
"The Ladykillers," re-imagined by filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Tom Hanks, does take liberties. The story is relocated from postwar London to a vaguely contemporary Mississippi. But the Coens' changes are more stylistic than structural. In both movies, five...
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