The Girl of the Canal

source: 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.

While 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.

More 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.

PAINTED 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.

A 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.

I 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.

Airplanes 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.

Nominally 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.

Veteran 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.