Passport to Pimlico

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.

Passport to Pimlico was well-received on its release. The film was released in the same year as Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Passport to Pimlico was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best British Film and the Academy Award for Writing (Story and Screenplay). There have since been two BBC Radio adaptations: the first in 1952, the second in 1996.