The brief notes on the DVD sleeve include the word, 'charming' twice and whilst this is appropriate the film is much more. Indeed the 'charming' storyline can be ignored and the beautifully shot film enjoyed as a documentary, albeit with more than a little of the propaganda feel to it. Cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe and most effective with great use made of the lyrical landscapes and cloud peppered skies. Curious time for film-making, during the War and this must have been intended as a morale boost as much as anything. Amazing shots of the canals, including vivid footage that I have never seen before. I'm astonished that this historic document has been so ignored for so long and for anyone interested in a glimpse at what life on the canals was like in the mid 40s, this is invaluable.
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christopher-underwood12 January 2010
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Spondonman28 September 2013Ealing were just at the beginning their golden period, after this the studio went on during the next year to make Dead Of Night which was one of their towering achievements. This little film however is not in that class even if still spellbinding for beaming back through Time to us a lost England. It's not completely lost because many people still ply boats along canals, only mainly as a pastime though.
It's a short semi-romantic semi-documentary showing brief episodes in the busy lives of a couple of families on the water, working on the Grand Union Canal between the Midlands and London. The rustic homeliness of it all was beautifully captured by the camera of Douglas Slocombe, I lost count of all the languid and lovely images of riverbanks, quaint buildings with or without thatch, gentle or frothing water and blue skies. And all in a clean and glorious black and white nitrate print. Thick accents through dubbed sound can be hard to follow at times as well as occasionally wondering what's going on as it's all taken so leisurely, but it's not a problem. A splendid lulling narration by James McKechnie takes over at times which is redolent of Eric Portman in Canterbury Tale – Can No One Speak Like That Nowadays? Jenny Laird, who a few years before had played Ethel to Just William was the main character in here, emotional Mary. Harry Fowler then nineteen years old played his usual lovable youth role, while Megs Jenkins seemed ready as usual to wash some glasses.
It leaves loose ends in the rush to finish but the main point was achieved in the one hour: the loving views of some wonderful English countryside. Engrossing inconsequential stuff, give it a punt. -
There isn't much of a plot to this slightly unusual but fascinating and quite well made film that is part documentary and part soap opera. However that isn't really the point here as the film has far more worth as a snapshot of life for those families who worked and lived on the British canals in the 1940s.
Whilst the film used (mostly) professional actors, the backdrop was real and utilised lots of location filming . As I said there isn't much of a story beyond the lives of a family who live and work on a canal barge and the world they live in. The story concerns the character Mary (Jenny Laird) and her love of life working the canals as generations before her have done. She is engaged to fellow bargee Ted Stoner who dreams of putting down roots and living in a house (unlike Mary). He hopes the army will call him up and offer him a way out and a trade even though he is is supposedly exempted from the draft as well as being illiterate. His younger brother Alf (Harry Fowler) finds life on the canal exciting yet his fractured education and that of others who live like him is also very prominently addressed.
Although there is a certain amount of a 'rose tinted' view of the lives of these gypsies of the river, the film doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of their life either, especially the scene where a contract is signed but the women in the scene cannot write their name so just sign it with an 'X'.
This film works as a glimpse of a way of life that existed for the best part of 200 years. However even in 1945 the film makers could see that the writing was on the wall for the bargee way of life. The importance of the railway network and the improvement of the roads and the rise of the HGV are all addressed. The second world war was probably the last hurrah for the canal network and those who worked on it for industrial reasons. In fact the war itself may very well have prolonged its importance and therefore its existence for a few extra years as trains were needed for things like troop transport and petrol was in short supply for road vehicles because of the war effort. However by the 1950s the wide scale commercial use of lorries, the nationalisation of the railways and the post war social changes in areas such as improved housing, education and healthcare all but effectively sounded the death knell for this way of life and by the end of the 1960s the canals were of little commercial importance anymore . In this respect the film offers us an invaluable look into the final few years of life on the canals and the people who worked them. -
bkoganbing11 November 2017Airplanes and motorcars and railways have left the canals of Great Britain far behind as our canals like the Erie Canal in my region of America. Today they exist as artificially made rivers hopefully with a fish in them.
But the canals had a revival of sorts as a method of transporting war material during World War II which lasted two years longer for them than it did for us. Painted Boats is an interesting mixture of documentary about the canals with a boy/girl story of two young people who are the latest generation of families who work the barges and locks of Britain's canal system. Jenny Laird and Robert Griffiths are the two young people who meet and plan to marry but Mr. Hitler disrupts all those plans.
These people's whole lives are wrapped up in the canal system from cradle to grave. When you either run a boat or the locks there's little need to know anything else. A really telling scene in this film is when Laird and her mother May Hallatt sign a new contract with a company and sign with "Xs". No need for literacy on a barge.
Painted boats is an interesting story of a time gone by in the United Kingdom. -
boblipton18 April 2020Nominally a story about two families who live on the canal boats of England navigational network, this is mostly about the canals themselves. We get a short documentary of the origins of Britain's network of man-made navigational rivers, their economic importance, and the issues that the riverine culture has with outsiders.
It's Charles Critchton's second movie as a director, and his training as an editor contributes to the brevity of the piece. Mustn't let the audience grow bored with lectures! Although there are professional actors in the movie, particularly Jenny Laird as the ingenue, there's a handsome authenticity to the movie. The characters all seem genuine. -
tieman641 May 2015A tribute to England's canal systems and waterways, "Painted Boats" is a charming film by director Charles Crichton. Part documentary, part drama, the film follows a group of men and women, most of whom manage the barges responsible for shipping material up and down England's many canals.
Whilst "Painted Boats'" plot is trite, Crichton nevertheless captures well the beauty of rural England, and the tempo of a life lived on liquid. Wistfully longing for a forgotten time, the film mourns the demise of a profession which struggled to survive beyond the first World War. This makes for potent nostalgia, though the film's uncritical glorification of both working-class toil and the Industrial Revolution eventually undermines Crichton's pretense at social-realism. The film was produced by Ealing Studios, then at the height of its creative powers.
7.9/10 – Worth one viewing. -
richardchatten14 September 2021Veteran Ealing director Charles Crichton's second feature film is as much documentary as drama. Handsomely shot on location by fellow Ealing craftsman Douglas Slocombe, like most of the studio's productions of the period it was intended at the time as reportage but has long since become a historical record of a vanished world.
The heroic tone of Louis MacNiece's commentary (portentously intoned by James McKechnie) is in marked contrast to the simple humanity of the film itself. -
William-de-Worde7 January 2004This film is mainly a romance but is also a Documentary. Showing life on "the Cut" when the canals where a part of the British transport scene.
The story follows the lives (and loves) of two families. The "Traditional" Smith's (Father, Mother & Mary Smith) in the Horse Drawn Barge "Sunny Valley" (which is converted to a motor barge in the film) and the "Modern" Stoner's (Mother, Ted Stoner & his younger brother Alf) in the motor barge "Golden Boy" & butty (an unpowered barge) "Blackbird".
Although released in 1945 it was filmed during the later part of the second world war the couple Mary Smith & Ted Stoner never get to marry (not in this film anyway) as Ted is "Called-Up" and joins the Army (The Royal Engineers).
The end of the film sees "Sunny Valley" emerging onto the River Thames at Limehouse, East London. -
Leofwine_draca16 March 2022PAINTED BOATS plays out as a documentary more than a drama film, although there is some light humour and romance thrown into a mildly fictionalised tale. Mostly it serves as a wonderful snapshot of a bygone era, as do so many of these Ealing classics. As somebody with an interest in our canal network, I found this glimpse of "how it was then" absolutely fascinating.
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nigel_hawkes24 December 2021I find it almost impossible to watch this right through, so nostalgic is it of a way of life virtually gone now. The blend of professional actors with, presumably, real-life characters works well. There's nothing really to fault-photography is very good and sharp; music appropriate; lots of familiar faces-e.g. Megs Jenkins, a young Harry Fowler...
Couple this with "The Song of the Road" (1937), which is about the replacement of horses on farms, and you have a pretty good depiction of life in England before and after the War. One critic summed up the 1937 film as "..a sentimental, idealised account of a country at peace with itself". It's not that simple of course, but there are plenty of documentaries about analysing the harder edge of those times.
Enjoy these films for what they are-wonderful depictions made with feeling, and valuable social documents. -
malcolmgsw21 November 2021A sort of hybrid film with a good dose of documentary mixed in with a slight story. Excellent photography of a the canals and the boats and showing a way of life that was about to vanish. Could have done without the sonorous intonation of the poetry making it a sort of aquatic Night Mail.
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plan992 June 2022More of a documentary than a drama but none the worse for it. Canal lovers will adore this film and rightly so, it can also be greatly enjoyed by those without an interest in canals of course. Gentle but never boring it came across as being realistic at least it did to me but I have no knowledge of how life aboard a barge actually was. Well worth watching.
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CinemaSerf26 December 2022This is actually quite a gently enjoyable piece of cinematic nostalgia. It depicts the life of "Mary" (Jenny Laird) and "Ted" (Robert Griffiths) whose families live onboard canal boats. Once the lifeblood of industrial Britain, these are now largely obsolete as functioning waterways but these two are trying to sustain their livelihood in the face of roads, trains and the unstoppable march of progress - in a lightly competitive fashion. The story itself is all just a bit insubstantial, tepid - even, but what helps this stick in the mind are the colourful images of life in 1940s Britain - a life that wasn't destined to thrive for too much longer. It's colourful and vibrant with some informed commentaries from James McKechnie that give it an almost "Public Information Film" feel to it. It's only an hour, and is certainly worth a watch for a glimpse of an - admittedly rose-tinted - way of life long gone, now.
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morrison-dylan-fan4 June 2022While relaxing at home during the Jubilee Bank Holiday,I took a look at Talking Pictures free online catch-up service,and was happy to find an Ealing title that I've not heard of before, leading to me painting a boat.
View on the film:
Running along the canals, director Charles Crichton & The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967-also reviewed) cinematographer Douglas Slocombe serve up a slice of Ealing class with a stylish mix of documentary and Melodrama, via impressively pulling the heavy cameras of the period deep into the vast, imposing canals, which spin out to elegant panning shots over the village and sharp smash-cuts towards close-ups that dissolve under the ripples of the canal water.
Covered in a soothing narration from James McKechnie, the screenplay by Stephen Black, Louis MacNeice and Michael McCarthy match the location, by taking a laid-back stance in the Melodrama between the two families, instead placing an emphasis on the technological advances made during the Industrial Revolution, and the cheerful, day to day living of those on painted boats. -
Coincidentally I am reading LTC Rolt's book "Narrow Boat" chronicling his exploration of the decaying British canal system at the same time - apparently he was consulted during the making of this film but didn't get a title credit much to his chagrin.
Having lived in a canal area it's striking how much the industrial landscape changed in the subsequent 50 years - now unrecognisable. Filmed during World War 2 it is notable how decrepit things were at that time due to a lack of investment - very much a working environment with no hint of the leisure boom which has lead to a resurgence in the use of canals.
I caught this film on the Talking Pictures channel and it is striking how good and clear the print quality is despite being filmed during a period of technical shortages.
The plot is a little melodramatic/of its period, with a bit of wartime propaganda inevitably thrown in, but the scenes of canal and industrial life make it an important film record.