Kind Hearts and Coronets [1949 film]
by Robert Hamer (Director, Screenwriter), John Dighton (Screenwriter)
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Description
Louis Mazzini seeks to avenge his mother's disinheritance by ascending to her family's dukedom. To do this, he must kill eight of his relatives in the d'Ascoyne family.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This came highly recommended by a friend although our copy was free with a relative's newspaper. Glad we didn't pay for it, really.
Black and white, starring Alec Guiness who plays just about every part, and does extremely well. But the plot is extremely far-fetched, and the ending rather predictable. Slapstick humour that left us rolling our eyes more than laughing.
Worth seeing once, as it's a classic, but we probably won't bother again.
Black and white, starring Alec Guiness who plays just about every part, and does extremely well. But the plot is extremely far-fetched, and the ending rather predictable. Slapstick humour that left us rolling our eyes more than laughing.
Worth seeing once, as it's a classic, but we probably won't bother again.
An estranged descendant of a Duke murders his relatives for an inheritance.
It's only occasionally funny enough to get a laugh, although it is consistently entertaining otherwise. Alec Guinness plays eight roles (all of them fun characters), and I might not even have guessed they're the same person if the blurb (and the opening credits) hadn't pointed it out.
It's only occasionally funny enough to get a laugh, although it is consistently entertaining otherwise. Alec Guinness plays eight roles (all of them fun characters), and I might not even have guessed they're the same person if the blurb (and the opening credits) hadn't pointed it out.
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ThingScore 100
Ninth in line to inherit a dukedom, the insouciant young hero (Dennis Price) systematically eliminates the intervening eight—a snob, a general, a photographer, an admiral, a suffragette, a clergyman, a banker, and the duke—all, by a casting stroke of genius, played by Alec Guinness. Secure in the knowledge that Guinness will return in another form, the audience suffers no regret as each show more abominable D’Ascoyne is coolly dispatched. And as the murderer takes us further into his confidence with each foul deed, we positively look forward to his next success. With purring little Joan Greenwood as the minx-nemesis Sybilla, Valerie Hobson as the high-minded Edith, Miles Malleson as the poetasting executioner. show less
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Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
The Criterion Collection (325)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
The Alec Guinness Collection: Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Ladykillers / The Man in the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise by Robert Hamer
Ealing Comedy Collection 1: The Ladykillers / Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Man in the White Suit by Alexander Mackendrick
Is an adaptation of
Has as a study
Has as a supplement
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Kind Hearts and Coronets [1949 film]
- Original publication date
- 1949-06-21
- Related movies
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949 | IMDb)
- Quotations
- It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.
I must admit he exhibits the most extraordinary capacity for middle age that I've ever encountered in a young man of twenty-four.
I always say my West window has all the *exuberance* of Chaucer without, happily, any of the concomitant crudities of his period.
After using the silken rope... never again be content with hemp.
In the afternoon, Ethelred invited me to inspect the castle. It was pleasant to stand on the battlements and know that the acres which stretched as far as the eye could see would soon be mine. And it amused me to cover much t... (show all)he same ground as that of my sixpenny tour. I had never been in a building so lavishly equipped with the instruments of violent death.
ETHELRED. Feel the weight of that. Our ancestors must have been fine men, Louis.
They seemed, however, ill-adapted to the discreet requirements of 20th-century homicide, and the end of the day found my host still intact and myself still without a plan. - Disambiguation notice
- 1949 film
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 154
- Popularity
- 212,581
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.15)
- Languages
- English, French
- ISBNs
- 7
- UPCs
- 3
- ASINs
- 19
