The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Ealing comedy

DIRECTOR

Robert Hamer

WRITERS

Robert Hamer with John Dighton

STARS

Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson

BEFORE

1942 Went the Day Well? is one of the first successful movies made at Ealing Studios.

1947 It Always Rains on a Sunday is the first of Robert Hamer’s three Ealing movies.

AFTER

1951 The Lavender Hill Mob features Alec Guinness as a mousy clerk who becomes a criminal mastermind.

1957 Barnacle Bill is the last of the Ealing comedies. Alec Guinness plays multiple roles.

Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of a series of British comedies that came out of the Ealing Studios in London between 1947 and 1957. Starring Alec Guinness as all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family, each of whom falls victim to a gentleman murderer, the movie has the urbane charm and light with characteristic of the Ealing style. The plot centers on the rise of Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), who is determined to avenge his mother for the shabby treatment she received at the hands of the D’Ascoyne family. One by one, he plots to remove all family members that stand between him and the D’Ascoyne fortune and dukedom. His murder spree begins with the arrogant young Ascoyne D’Ascoyne, and ends with Lord Ascoyne.

The movie’s title is taken from a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.”

Comic killings

Guinness is the star of the movie, and each of his absurd characters is so sharply drawn that they are instantly delineated, to great comic effect. But Guinness is matched by the movie’s “straight man,” Price. As Mazzini, he is the epitome of manners, exhibiting such courtesy and aplomb that the audience feels a sense of glee as he dispatches each D’Ascoyne in turn.

Here is director Robert Hamer’s genius in having Guinness play all eight victims. Because the audience knows that when one Guinness character is bumped off, another will take his place, it never feels repelled by the murders, but rather remains in thrall to Price’s charm and wills him on as he eliminates the obstacles to inheriting the title. A subplot shows Mazzini in a complex romantic relationship with his materialistic childhood sweetheart Sibella (Joan Greenwood), who made the mistake of turning down the lowly Mazzini to marry the rich but very dull Lionel, only to see Mazzini rise to become a duke and fabulously rich, while Lionel descends into bankruptcy and suicide. Mazzini, having got away with the D’Ascoyne murders, is convicted of murdering Lionel, the one death of which he’s innocent. His only hope of escaping the hangman comes when Sibella hints that she might “find” Lionel’s suicide note if Mazzini promises to marry her. But even then, the movie has one more twist up its sleeve—a typically sardonic finale. Ealing movies were not always as sweetly innocent as their reputation suggests, and Hamer’s movie was the perfect mix of the comic and the caustic.

“I shot an arrow in the air; she fell to earth in Berkeley Square.”

Louis Mazzini / Kind Hearts and Coronets

The charmingly selfish Sibella presents her marriage deal to Mazzini in his cell. Sibella is competing with Edith, the widow of one of Mazzini’s victims, to marry him.

Sir Alec Guinness was one of the great British actors of the last century, noted for his subtle gentlemanly manner. Born in 1914 in London, he started life as an advertising copywriter, before taking up stage acting. He became acclaimed for his Shakespearean roles, and by 1950 was a celebrated actor of the London stage. He began his screen career with a series of Ealing comedies before working with director David Lean on more serious movies, winning an Oscar for his performance in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars movies made him hugely famous in the 1980s. He died in 2000 at 86.

1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets

1955 The Ladykillers

1957 Bridge on the River Kwai

1965 Doctor Zhivago

What else to watch: It Always Rains on a Sunday (1947) ✵ Passport to Pimlico (1949) ✵ Whisky Galore! (1949) ✵ The Man in a White Suit (1951) ✵ The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) ✵ The Ladykillers (1955)