The Ladykillers director Alexander Mackendrick's third Ealing farce is the final comedy produced by the famous British studio and one of its most celebrated. Like the equally applauded Kind Hearts And Coronets the film is more sophisticated and blacker in tone than typically lighthearted Ealing fare (such as Mackendrick's Whiskey Galore!). Alec Guinness stars as the superbly shifty toothily threatening Professor Marcus the leader of a crime ring planning a heist. Marcus rents rooms from a sweet eccentric old lady Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) in her crooked... London house. The professor and his co-conspirators blowhard Major Courtney (Cecil Parker) creepily suave Louis (Herbert Lom) chubby Harry (Peter Sellers) and muscleman One-Round (Danny Green) pose as an unlikely string quartet using the rooms for rehearsal. Dodging Mrs. Wilberforce's constant interruptions the hoods hit upon the idea to use her in the daring daylight robbery (filmed in and around London's King's Cross station). When the old girl discovers the truth Marcus and company cannot persuade her to stay buttoned up about it and thus decide to do her in. Accompanied by a noirish cacophony of screeching trains parrots and little old ladies at afternoon tea a series of unlikely events builds to the hilarious surprising finale. [show more]
"I shot an arrow in the air; she fell to earth in Berkeley Square". Of all the excellent Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets, a side splittingly funny tale of the merits of getting ahead in life through murdering your relatives, is undoubtedly my favourite. Dennis Price plays Louis, a young man raised in poverty after his mother was spurned by her wealthy D"Ascoyne family for choosing to marry an Italian. (Seemingly an Italian with a weak constitution for he drops dead the moment he claps eyes on his new baby son). After Louis loses his fiancée to a wealthier man, he decides to improve his social standing by bumping off all the relatives that stand between him and a dukedom. Alec Guinness delivers a tour de force performance as all of the unfortunate relatives, ranging from dotty vicar to an ugly suffragette to a pigheaded admiral, who meet their deaths through a series of increasingly bizarre incidents (drifting boats, exploding labs, battleships sailing into one another). This film is nearly fifty years old but the wit is still shape and the humour of the highest order.
We will publish your review of Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949] on DVD within a few days as long as it meets our guidelines.
None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy
