Kind Hearts and Coronets
1949
****
Director: Robert Hamer
Cast: Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Audrey Fildes, Miles Malleson, Clive Morton, John Penrose
Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, whose late mother was disowned by her aristocratic family, seeks revenge by murdering the relatives who are ahead of him in the line of succession to the title of Duke of Chalfont. This dark comedy from Ealing Studios is loosely based on Roy Horniman's 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal. The film is not laugh-out-loud funny like The Ladykillers (1955), but it is smart and delightful. The wonderful Alec Guinness plays eight different members of the D'Ascoyne family.
