A review of the classic film “Kind Hearts And Coronets” (1949)
This deliciously black comedy from Ealing Studios is loosely based on the novel “Israel Rank: The Autobiography Of A Criminal” (1907) by Roy Horniman. The work, co-written and directed by Robert Hammer, is regarded as one of the best British films ever made and remains a popular piece of entertainment.
Set in the class-ridden times of Edwardian England, the central character, Louis D’Ascoyne Mazzini (the suave Dennis Price), is the narrator who tells his murderous and fantastical story while in prison awaiting execution the following morning. Denied the family’s dukedom, he needed to eliminate the eight people ahead of him in the line of succession to the title, all of them portrayed by the versatile Alec Guinness (in one shot, Guinness appears as six of his characters at once in a single frame). The plotting is inventive and the ending is simply wonderful.