Abstract
For Britain between 1939 and 1945, cinema became a crucial medium of propaganda, but in neutral Ireland its war-effort films could be shown, if at all, only in severely cut versions. The output of Ealing Studios, run by the fiercely patriotic Michael Balcon, was treated with particular severity by the Irish censor under the Emergency Powers Order. The 1944 Ealing film The Halfway House incorporates a response to this problem, and provides the article's main focus. One of its main characters is an Irish diplomat who defends his country's neutrality, but ends up by changing his stance; his scenes were edited out before the film was sent to Ireland, ensuring that it was exhibited there, while the full version made its polemical point in other markets. The episode is seen as characteristic of Ealing's Anglocentrism, which is counterbalanced, decades later, by the committed Irish work of Balcon's own grandson, Daniel Day-Lewis.
Published Version
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