The Magnet

Ealing often sent their crews to exotic locations and the claim in the opening credits that this fanciful whimsy was filmed at Ealing Studios - unusually without Alec Guinness - is ironically promptly contradicted by its's vivid rendering by cameraman Lionel Banes of the Merseyside locations around which a young 'William' Fox (as he was then called) is pursued; although Banes does also do an atmospheric job on the interiors.

Though The Magnet oozes middle-class wholesome 1950's family values, which can be seen these days as starchy and very straight-laced, this unusual offering from the Ealing Studios works well on many levels.

With his father a child psychologist, ten year old Johnny Brent (James Fox) has a very colourful imagination and loves inventing things and questioning everything. Johnny keeps getting under his mother's feet and so he is sent off out to play at the local beach to explore.

There, he trades rather dishonestly a magic (non-existent) watch for a giant magnet from a younger lad. The lad's nanny tells him off and so Johnny scarpers and starts imagining that he's in trouble with the police. Then, through completely contrived, but affectionately drawn events, the giant magnet comes up for auction and raises money for a hospital appeal. Johnny becomes hero.

Yes, this is whimsical nonsense and is rather Disney, before Disney did such things. But it's also the locations and snapshot of British life back then. It'll certainly appeal to the older generation and undoubtedly, to us boys of all ages, more, as it harks back to our own childhoods.

Generally, the acting is quite average and the direction from Ealing regular Charles Friend is about passable, though there are some fantasy sequences which are OK. However, the young James is a tonic, eschewing youthful zest and intrigue. He's completely natural and believable, little wonder that he went on to become the mega star he did.

The DVD transfer is OK but is a bit soft.

All in all, if you're expecting a comedy caper, as in the best Ealing tradition, you may be disappointed. But if you love your Ealing's and want to explore beyond the box-set classics, then this does quite nicely.

This post-war British film from the great Ealing studios, is a charming tale of innocence lost, and particularly the idea of childhood guilt, brought on by a small incident and exacerbated by fear and misconstrued information. Johnny Brent (a young James Fox - billed as William Fox), a 10 year old wanderer, cons a younger boy into giving him his magnet. After feeling guilt (and particularly the fear of being caught out) he hands the powerful magnet to a charity organiser, feeling that he would be rid of his culpability. His imagination - coupled with his stricken conscience - takes over, as the boy with the magnet becomes of interest to the local authorities. He overhears and misinterprets some information he believes is connected with the boy he stole from. Fearing that he has caused the death of the boy, Johnny runs away.

The Magnet is full of genuine charm. It almost perfectly captures those moments of childhood where we believe we have done great wrong - a usual emotion of guilt, but particularly it is the acquisition of information in these situations that are fundamentally ingrained on our conscience. Johnny's father, Dr Brent (Stephen Murray), is a Jungian Psychoanalyst who attempts to interpret the unusual behaviour of his son, which leads to some interesting asides - this could possibly even be a criticism of this form of psychology, and it's intrinsic hypotheses that all strange behaviours are connected to the parents.

This is by no means the greatest of Ealing Studios output, but it is a delightful story of youth, with a good lead performance from Fox. It is always irresistible to watch old British films, and see an autonomous country that looks individual, before the signs and signifiers of American consumerism invaded and changed the landscape forever.

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I bought this black & white video recently from a street vendor in St Albans market, Hertfordshire as part of a job lot of three Ealing comedies he was selling for £15.The others were "Whisky Galore" and "Passport to Pimlico".The other comments written below adequately deal with the basic plot, so I shall not elaborate further on that.What is interesting is to see the young William Fox play the juvenile lead small boy and whose later stage name was changed to James Fox (brother of Edward Fox) who later became well known in the film "The Servant" and "Performance".I was born in 1946 and this film was produced in 1950 so those scenes shown of early post war Britain have a reminiscence for me, when I remember those bomb sites, school dinners, food rationing which extended up to 1955, and an altogether more simple life.In those days children went "out to play" with their friends much more than todays TV/computer bound generation.

The jokes about the Labour Government and psychiatry give the film a distinctly middle class feel which Ealing Studios did not usually portray in their comedies but which was firmly entrenched in the mainstream British film industry at the time.It would be some time before genuine British working class actors exploded onto the screen.The dockside gang the small boy befriends appeared to be genuine working class and so those scenes were the highlight for me.Of course this film being produced in 1950, there has to be a morality tale in the script.Here the evils of cheating someone bring inevitable feelings of guilt until assuaged by an equal measure of generosity by the little boy to the aggrieved party, a handicapped boy of similar age.

I had never seen this Ealing comedy before so was delighted by the unexpected twists and turns in the plot.If you are a fan of gentle Ealing comedies, you may want to seek out this long forgotten (by the major TV networks) film and you will be entertained I feel sure.

A lot of the film was shot in New Brighton, and I have added this to the database as a location. The pier and ferry are no longer there but the Floral Pavilion and Wilkie's fairground (where they try to influence the pinball machine with the magnet) are. The swimming baths where the Miss New Brighton Competition takes place has gone as well. The bike shop was Longworths in Rowson St. You went and chose your bike and Mr Longworth told you to come and collect it next week so he had time to put the seat at the right height, check the brakes,oil it for you and check the tyres.