KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS

One in a series of hugely successful comedies made by Ealing Studios after the war, this 1949 production follows Louis Mazzini, a charming but ruthless outsider determined to seek revenge on the aristocratic family who disinherited him and his mother. He plots to remove the eight relatives that stand between him and the dukedom, an outrageous, immoral and irresistibly entertaining solution.

What makes the film essential viewing is not just its deliciously macabre plot, but the brilliance with which it is told. Dennis Price gives Louis a silky, sardonic intelligence, while Alec Guinness delivers a legendary comic performance as multiple members of the D’Ascoyne family, playing everything from vicars to suffragettes. The film’s humour is unmistakably British, much of it in the presentation of Louis as outwardly charming and refined, but secretly a serial killer. It exposes the snobbery and hypocrisy of the upper classes without ever losing its lightness of touch. 

Loosely based on an Edwardian novel, the film’s recreation of the period is exceptional, both in its manners and its costumes and décor. Ealing Studio aimed to make British films that promoted the national character but which would appeal to international audiences and they achieved this with the Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets being widely regarded as the high point of the series.

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Text: Josephine Botting