A Very British Melodrama. Basil Dearden’s Out Of The Clouds.

There’s a weird, cynical edge to Basil Dearden’s Out Of The Clouds. Made in the wake of World War II, Dearden’s Ealing production is one very much tied to the melodramatic as opposed to the light-hearted comedy that the studio was better known for.

While it’s an aesthetically impressive feature, with the crew behind the picture tasked with building a scale reproduction of the then London Airport (now Heathrow) in which to shoot the picture, the tone of the picture is all over the place. One character decries to another that in the wake of the Second World War there’s “No Welcome Sign on the Statue of Liberty anymore”, which is all the more surreal when the person being told this is a Jewish survivor of said war en-route to the Land Of The Free. While hope does win out in the end, via a romantic interlude that comes to be in the thick London smog, the journey there is perplexing to say the least. Another subplot involves a gambling addict pilot who smuggles contraband for an unrequited love, though the most depressing figure is Robert Beatty’s duty officer, the man tasked with the day-to-day running of the airport, a former pilot who is grounded following some alluded to altercation that took place during the Second World War. He spends the entire movie, which takes place over the course of a single day in the airport, coming to terms with this.

For its sense of place and space alone Out Of The Clouds is well worth a look, and as a melodrama that offers up a specifically Anglo-counterpoint to those working in the US in the wake of WWII it’s certainly interesting, but it’s most definitely hard work.

Out Of The Clouds is available on DVD.