page_title: Passport to Pimlico
section_title: Filming
hierarchical_section_title: Passport to Pimlico / Production / Filming
caption_attribution_description: English: portrait of Barbara Murray at home
context_page_description: Passport to Pimlico is a 1949 British comedy film made by Ealing Studios and starring Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Hermione Baddeley. It was directed by Henry Cornelius and written by T. E. B. Clarke. The story concerns the unearthing of treasure and documents that lead to a small part of Pimlico to be declared a legal part of the House of Burgundy, and therefore exempt from the post-war rationing or other bureaucratic restrictions active in Britain at the time.
  Passport to Pimlico explores the spirit and unity of wartime London in a post-war context and offers an examination of the English character. Like other Ealing comedies, the film pits a small group of British against a series of changes to the status quo from an external agent. The story was an original concept by the screenwriter T. E. B. Clarke. He was inspired by an incident during the Second World War, when the maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital was temporarily declared extraterritorial by the Canadian government so that when Princess Juliana of the Netherlands gave birth, the baby was born on Dutch territory, and would not lose her right to the throne.
context_section_description: Passport to Pimlico is set during a heatwave that occurred in Britain in 1947, but, despite this, filming took place during 1948's abnormally wet summer. The poor weather caused delays in production, which led to the film being over-time and over-budget. Shooting started early each day, in an attempt to get the first successful shot completed before 9:00 am. An average of ten takes a day were taken, in an attempt to get two and a half minutes of usable film per day. There were arguments between Cornelius and Balcon throughout the production, because Balcon was unhappy with what he saw as poor direction. Cornelius left Ealing Studios after working on Passport to Pimlico and did not work for the studio again.
  The outdoor scenes were not shot in Pimlico, but about a mile away in Lambeth. A set was built on a large Second World War bombsite just south of the Lambeth Road at the junction of Hercules Road. At the conclusion of filming, the site had to be returned to the same bomb-damaged state as before, to enable the locals to claim war damage compensation. The site has since been built on, and now features 1960s municipal flats.
caption: Barbara Murray, who played Shirley Pemberton, pictured in 1973
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