KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS Movie Review

At the turn of the century, young Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) is appalled at the injustice of his being ninth in line to inherit the dukedom that he believes should be rightfully his. Though there are complicated reasons for Louis's dilemma, he hits upon a simple solution; murder the eight who are in the line of inheritance before him. An even simpler—and more brilliant—solution was the one hit upon by the film's producer, Michael Balcon; casting Alec Guinness as all eight of the intended victims. Balcon and director Robert Hamer fashioned a darkly satirical assault on traditional British values, and British, American, and worldwide audiences ate it up. The biting, acidic wit is served up in a quick-witted and completely unsentimental screenplay that had considerable shock value in 1949, and it still packs a kick a half-century later. But it's the genius of Guinness's performance(s) in Kind Hearts and Coronets that elevates it to classic status. And for a generation that knows Guinness only as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, his work here will be more than a delight—it will be a revelation. Based on Roy Horniman's 1907 novel Israel Rank, Kind Hearts and Coronets was one of the best of the many extraordinary British comedies produced under Michael Balcon's supervision at Ealing Studios. With Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson, and Hugh Griffith.

NEXT STOP … The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, A Sense of History (1992, Mike Leigh, available in the anthology Two Mikes Don't Make a Wright)

1949 104m/B GS Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Audrey Fildes, Miles Malleson, Clive Morton, Cecil Ramage, John Penrose, Hugh Griffith, John Salew, Eric Messiter, Anne Valery, Arthur Lowe, Jeremy Spenser; D: Robert Hamer; W: Robert Hamer, John Dighton; C: Douglas Slocombe; M: Ernest Irving. VHS, LV REP, FCT, HMV