Ealings Studios – Inexpensive Progress

The Titfield Thunderbolt is a 1953 movie by Ealing Studios. The posters were designed by Edward Bawden but so was the promotional ephemera.

The main poster for The Titfield Thunderbolt by Edward Bawden, 1953.

The main poster design might be very colourful and lively as it was the first colour comedy film Ealing Studios had produced.

This poster advertises the film produced in Britain by Ealing Studios in 1952. During the 1940s Ealing Studios commissioned artists like Edward Bawden, Edward Ardizzone and John Piper to design posters. Their illustrative, often humorous, style was quintessentially British and far removed from that of contemporary American film posters, which relied heavily on photographs of the stars as their major selling-point. Bawden ingeniously avoids a hierarchical billing of names by incorporating them equally into the steam of the engine.

The DVD Reissue for The Titfield Thunderbolt with Edward Bawden’s poster.

The Titfield Thunderbolt is a 1953 British comedy film about a group of villagers trying to keep their branch line operating after British Railways decided to close it. The film was written by T.E.B. Clarke and was inspired by the restoration of the narrow gauge Talyllyn Railway in Wales, the world’s first heritage railway run by volunteers.

A variation of the Edward Bawden poster, likely for use outside cinemas.

Along with the film poster there are also some items of paraphernalia that Bawden designed; Letterheads and promotional booklets.

An Alternative Poster – A Cheaper to Print Two-Colour Poster for inside Cinemas.

A Letter Head Design.

Above is the press-book for the Titfield Thunderbolt with an alternative drawing by Edward Bawden. I think the gardener is gesticulating a V for Victory.

The Christmas card above from 1952 was designed by Bawden to be sent from Reginald P. Baker and Michael Balcon, the films producers.

To see more Posters by British Artists that Ealing Studios produced see my previous blog on the topic here.

V&A – E.181-1980

Ealing Studios have many wonderful films, but there was a period of time when they would hire fine-art artists to design promotional ephemera and posters.

A good example is for the movie ‘Painted Boats’ from 1945. The artwork for the film was designed by John Piper. The painting of the Canal boat has a graphic device painted in by Piper, like the top of a decorative headstone.

The Movie Poster for Painted Boats, 1945.

The original painting for the film poster by John Piper.

In the credit sequence of the film there is a stylised version of the graphic device used by John Piper – I am unsure if Ealing Studios gave him it to paint first, or if he painted it and they cleaned it up for the film. The backdrop to this maybe a pro-type painting used as the movies title sequence as the trees are not the same in the image above.

The posters for Ealing Studios films feature artwork by many of the era’s greatest artists including John Piper, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone and Mervyn Peake, while the acting talent is a roll-call of many of Britain’s greatest performers. †

Even when commissioned, the studio didn’t always use the artwork by the artists, ‘The Bells Go Down’, 1942 was John Pipers first work with Ealing and although paid for his efforts, they didn’t use the artwork for the poster.

The Bells Go Down, 1942. Poster prototype design by John Piper.

Ealing’s advertising department was headed up by S. John Woods, who trained as an artist and graphic designer, before working in a variety of advertising roles, including a stint at Twentieth Century Fox in the 1930s. In 1943, he joined Ealing to help realise the vision of the studio’s chief publicist, Monja Danischewsky.

Unusually for a designer working in film advertising, Woods wasn’t afraid to bring politics into the equation. Throughout the 1930s he moved in artistic circles that included Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, soaking up the energy and fervour of the interwar generation, cultivating a love of British abstract and surrealist art and actively contributing to exhibitions and articles challenging the established order.

Below is a curious mixture of Ealing Films own graphics department and artists work, in this case using Ronald Searle’s cartoons based on the film and using his St Trinian’s girls series.

The Lavender Hill Mob – Ealing Studios with decorations by Ronald Searle, 1951.

Below is another drawing by Ronald Searle for the Danish version of the poster. The drawing of Alex Guinness is wonderful.

Danish Poster for Masser af Guld – Lots of Gold. The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951.

The artist John Minton also made two poster designs for Ealing Studios for the movie ‘Eureka Stockade’, one landscape, one portrait. At first it might look like they are the same image cropped, but the way the man above the cartwheel handles his gun, the riders at the end of the stockade and the man with the razor-blade behind the soldier show they are not the same image, just very similar.

John Minton – Eureka Stockade, 1949

Here are two Posters by Edward Bawden, one for ‘Hue & Cry’ and the other is ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’. The mixed perspectives of this and the light and dark boys used in both are wonderful. Both posters have hand-drawn typography.

Edward Bawden – Hue & Cry Poster, 1947

Edward Bawden – The Titfield Thunderbolt Poster, 1952

John Piper – Pink String and Sealing Wax Poster, 1945.

Above is the poster designed by John Piper and like in ‘Painted Boats’ the opening credits also used a similar design to the poster. The opening credits image actually comes from his ’Brighton Aquatints’ folio of prints, published in 1939. The poster must be adapted from the drawing.

John Piper – Kemp Town, 1939

† Page 2 – Press Release – Ealing Films – Light and Dark
‡ Ealing and the art of the film poster