Director: Robert Hamer
Produced by: Michael Balcon and Michael Relph
Production Company: Ealing Studios
Distributed by: General Film Distributors
Screenplay: Robert Hamer and John Dighton
Adapted from the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal
by Roy Horniman
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe
Original Score: Ernest Irving
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is the most delicious concoction ever produced by Michael Balcon’s Ealing Studios, and it remains my favorite British film. Robert Hamer’s exquisitely intelligent and stylish direction, based on a screenplay he wrote with John Dighton (“The Man in the White Suit” and “Roman Holiday”), flows like dark chocolate over a mouthwatering sundae.
Dennis Price
Starring the deliciously urbane Dennis Price as lowly draper’s assistant Louis Mazzini, who finds himself distantly in line for a dukedom. Infuriated by this aristocratic family’s cruel treatment of his mother – she eloped with his father, who was a lowly musician – he becomes a serial killer, setting out to systematically murder all eight of the Ascoyne-D’Ascoynes ahead of him in line for the seat of D’Ascoyne-Chalfont up to, and including, Ethelred, the sitting 8th Duke of Chalfont
Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness has fun playing all nine D’Ascoynes – in a short flashback involving the elopement of Louis’ father and mother, we see him as a ninth D’Ascoyne, the 7th Duke of Chalfont, Etheired’s father. That’s three generations and both sexes, with the older generations offering a delicious tongue-in-cheek glimpse into the professions favored by the male members of the British upper classes in the Edwardian era. By the time Louis finds himself in the employ of the Banker, Lord Ascoyne D’Ascoyne, the first of Louis’ casualties has already died in a boating accident. The names of Louis’ victims and their method of dispatch are as follows:
Ethelred D’Ascoyne, 8th Duke of Chalfont (hunting accident)
The Reverend Lord Henry D’Ascoyne (poisoned)
The General, Lord Rufus D’Ascoyne (bomb)
The Admiral, Lord Horatio D’Ascoyne. (Goes down with his ship)
Louis’s employer and the final victim is the banker, Lord Ascoyne D’Ascoyne. He dies of shock on learning that he is the last D’Ascoyne standing.
Lady Agatha D’Ascoyne, Ethelred’s sister, is a militant suffragette whom Louis shoots down from her warm air balloon while she is distributing leaflets over London.
The younger generation consists of the philandering Young Ascoyne D’Ascoyne, whose arrogance causes Louis to get fired from his original draper’s assistant position and whose drowning sets Louis’ killing spree in motion. Then, the one good egg in the basket, Young Henry D’Ascoyne, is married to the beautiful Edith. His passion for amateur photography allows Louis to switch some of the chemicals in his darkroom, leading to Young Ascoyne’s death by explosion.
