Green Grow the Rushes

The British film industry was in deep trouble in the late 1940s, sufficient to justify the craft unions themselves working to secure some production for their members - one result was Green Grow The Rushes, a comedy directed by Derek Twist and starring Richard Burton, Roger Livesey (The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going), and Honor Blackman (Goldfinger, The Avengers, A Night To Remember). The plot is a piercing look at postwar Britain, and efforts to move the nation into the modern age - that doesn't sit well with the people of Anderia Marsh, who have claimed a right (going back to Henry III) to evade government-imposed import duties and taxes. And when the government decides to curb this right, the whole village quietly rises up in a comical rebellion. (Criterion)