The Halfway House is set in the sunlit uplands of Great Britain both physically and figuratively. Most of the action takes place in the Welsh hills on a lovely summer’s day and is ultimately lit up with optimism despite being filmed towards the Second World War. This might not be the best-known Ealing film, but it is a neglected treat.
The film has a good pedigree. It is directed by Basil Dearden, the man who directed more Ealing films than any one else, and has a screenplay by Angus MacPhail (who wrote classic Ealing comedy Whisky Galore) and Diana Morgan. The producer was Sir Michael Balcon, the head of Ealing studios and a man with many great movies under his celluloid belt. It features stalwarts of British acting from the 1940s including Tom Walls, Mervyn and Glynnis Johns, as well as French legend Françoise Rosay. So far, so promising.
The film takes its name from a pub in the middle of Wales where a group of characters meet. The first section of the film introduces us to the people and their situations; everyone has reached some sort of an impasse in their lives. There is a mortally ill composer, two or three warring couples, and a couple of crooks. By various twists of fate they all find themselves in The Halfway House, where they get to look at their lives in a different light.
This is not a comedy, or even an Ealing comedy, but it does have that famous gentle Ealing humour and tender appreciation of human weaknesses. The film has a supernatural element – it’s not giving too much away to say this – but it’s neither scary nor eerie. There is something mysterious going on which helps carry the film forward.
Although set miles from the front, the war is never far away from the guests at The Halfway House. All the characters are somehow scarred by the conflict, and the film gives an interesting insight into the state of mind of the British after five hard years of war. The Halfway House is a very clear rallying call for the Allied cause. While propaganda isn’t a particularly subtle ‘genre’, the film’s moralism seems entirely worthwhile when the enemy was Hitler.
The film is similar to The Big Chill and other movies where a group of people congregate for mutual personal revaluation and revelation. The insights here however are very English, they have something of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster about them, but with humour and emotional depth.
The Coen Brothers are unlikely to remake this Ealing movie as they did with The Ladykillers, but it is still very enjoyable. The film skirts some very dark and sad regions, but does so with that lovely halo of Ealing warmth and that can’t be bad.
The Halfway House house has been restored and will be out on DVD for the first time on June 20.
