Kind Hearts and Coronets (U.)
Directed by Robert Hamer.
Starring Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson. 1949. Black and White.
The recent little Ealing comedy revival concludes with surely the studio’s most treasured production. It is the film that people always think of as the one where Alec Guinness plays eight parts and the one that people watching it barely notice Guinness playing eight parts because they are so caught up in Dennis Price’s performance.
He play Louis Mazzini, who decides to kill off the entire D’Ascoyne family (Guinness) in order to claim the title Duke of Chalfont and avenge his mother who had been shunned and dispossessed for marrying beneath herself. He is an urbane, witty, cold blooded killer: part Oscar Wilde and part Dexter.
It’s just a magnificent performance, well matched by Joan Greenwood as the equally dark hearted Sibella. In comparison, and I know it sacrilege to say it, but Guinness isn’t really that great. A couple of roles are just dressing up and most of the others are rather indistinguishable, probably because they aren’t around for long before Mazzini kills them, and most of them seem roughly the same age. Only perhaps the young Henry and The Parson impact. (Guinness never tried to repeat the feat on screen though I read the young Peter Sellers saw it as a challenge to try and outdo him so and did so on a number of occasions so I guess we can thank this film for Dr Strangelove.)
The darkness of the film is quite extraordinary. Numerous remakes have been proposed (Dustin Hoffman was going to do a Guinness at one stage) but watching it the contemporary figure I thought of was Peter Greenaway because he has the total emotional detachment to do it. (He’d like the killing the same actor eight times as well.) Because it is aristocratic and sophisticated people overlook that it is entirely nihilistic. The D’Ascoynes are tastefully dispatched, but ruthlessly so, with little concern for innocent bystanders.
The movie seems as aloof as its characters. The witty remarks are of the sort you feel really pleased with yourself for laughing at. When Sibella says her husband went to Europe to expand his mind, Louis responds, “He certainly has room to do so,” and I snorted my appreciation before wondering if that same line would sound so improbably and unexpectedly witty if it had been uttered by some dreadful colonial comedian such as Kevin James.
It is an odd vision. The whole class system is seen as thoroughly rotten to the core, just completely worthless, yet the film feels comfortable with them. Louis feels justified in bumping them off for their arrogant snobbish dismissals of everybody else, though he shares exacyly the same attributes. But this is England where Après Moi Le Deluge can quite easily be applied to sociopaths as long as they well spoken and observe correct etiquette.
Directed by Robert Hamer.
Starring Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson. 1949. Black and White.
The recent little Ealing comedy revival concludes with surely the studio’s most treasured production. It is the film that people always think of as the one where Alec Guinness plays eight parts and the one that people watching it barely notice Guinness playing eight parts because they are so caught up in Dennis Price’s performance.
He play Louis Mazzini, who decides to kill off the entire D’Ascoyne family (Guinness) in order to claim the title Duke of Chalfont and avenge his mother who had been shunned and dispossessed for marrying beneath herself. He is an urbane, witty, cold blooded killer: part Oscar Wilde and part Dexter.
It’s just a magnificent performance, well matched by Joan Greenwood as the equally dark hearted Sibella. In comparison, and I know it sacrilege to say it, but Guinness isn’t really that great. A couple of roles are just dressing up and most of the others are rather indistinguishable, probably because they aren’t around for long before Mazzini kills them, and most of them seem roughly the same age. Only perhaps the young Henry and The Parson impact. (Guinness never tried to repeat the feat on screen though I read the young Peter Sellers saw it as a challenge to try and outdo him so and did so on a number of occasions so I guess we can thank this film for Dr Strangelove.)
The darkness of the film is quite extraordinary. Numerous remakes have been proposed (Dustin Hoffman was going to do a Guinness at one stage) but watching it the contemporary figure I thought of was Peter Greenaway because he has the total emotional detachment to do it. (He’d like the killing the same actor eight times as well.) Because it is aristocratic and sophisticated people overlook that it is entirely nihilistic. The D’Ascoynes are tastefully dispatched, but ruthlessly so, with little concern for innocent bystanders.
The movie seems as aloof as its characters. The witty remarks are of the sort you feel really pleased with yourself for laughing at. When Sibella says her husband went to Europe to expand his mind, Louis responds, “He certainly has room to do so,” and I snorted my appreciation before wondering if that same line would sound so improbably and unexpectedly witty if it had been uttered by some dreadful colonial comedian such as Kevin James.
It is an odd vision. The whole class system is seen as thoroughly rotten to the core, just completely worthless, yet the film feels comfortable with them. Louis feels justified in bumping them off for their arrogant snobbish dismissals of everybody else, though he shares exacyly the same attributes. But this is England where Après Moi Le Deluge can quite easily be applied to sociopaths as long as they well spoken and observe correct etiquette.
