Product Description

Director Robert Hamer's fiendishly funny Kind Hearts and Coronets stands as one of Ealing Studios' greatest triumphs, and one of the most wickedly black comedies ever made. Dennis Price is sublime as an embittered young commoner determined to avenge his mother's unjust disinheritance by ascending to the dukedom. Unfortunately, eight family members (all played by the incomparable Alec Guinness) must be eliminated before he can do so. SPECIAL FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer, BBC programs on Alec Guinness and the history of Ealing Studios, Gallery of archival production and publicity photographs, Original theatrical trailer and A new essay by film critic and historian Philip Kemp.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55078 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2006-02-28
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
Set in Victorian England, Robert Hamer's 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts and Coronets remains the most gracefully mordant of the Ealing comedies. Dennis Price plays Louis D'Ascoyne, the would-be Duke of Chalfont whose mother was spurned by her noble family for marrying an Italian singer for love. Louis resolves to avenge his mother by murdering the relatives ahead of him in line for the dukedom, all of whom are played by Alec Guinness. Guinness's virtuoso performances have been justly celebrated, ranging from a youthful D'Ascoyne with a priggish wife to a brace of doomed uncles and one aunt. Miles Malleson is a splendid doggerel-spouting hangman, while Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood take advantage of unusually strong female roles. But the great joy of Kind Hearts and Coronets is the way in which its appallingly black subject matter (considered beyond the pale by many critics at the time) is conveyed in such elegantly ironic turns of phrase by Price's narrator/antihero. Serial murder has never been conducted with such exquisite manners and discreet charm. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews

Utterly delightful black comedy
This film is most famous as the one in which Alec Guinness plays eight roles, but I have always been somewhat uncomfortable with the film being characterized in that way, because it makes it sound as if the main attraction of the film is a gimmick. In fact, this is a first rate comedy in many ways. This was one in a series of great comedies produced by the Ealing Studios in the 1940s and 1950s.

The film stars Dennis Price as the narrator, Louis Mazzini. He recounts his efforts to wreck revenge on the members of his mother's titled family who had disowned her when she married an Italian opera singer. His particular form of revenge consists of murder, and the film consists of his various efforts in this direction. Guinness, who in the course of his career managed to die in an astounding number of films, in this one manages to die eight times. He is excellent in each and every incarnation of a member of the D'Ascoyne family. Valerie Hobson is as elegant as always in playing the widow of one his victims with whom he later becomes romantically involved. Hobson was a great light of British cinema in the forties and early fifties, but gave up acting to marry politician John Profumo, who would be the principal public figure to fall in the Christine Keeler scandal. The film also features one of my all time favorite actresses, Joan Greenwood, who may have possessed the most delicious voice of any female in the history of film. Mention must also be made of Miles Malleson, who has a small but memorable role as the hangman.

The makers of the film manage a perfect concoction of highbrow wit that still managed to border on the absurd. For instance, at one point Mr. Mazzini informs a victim that he will first kill him and then run screaming for help, and then we manage to see him doing precisely that, running from the woods crying for assistance. There are many marvelous lines, many of them almost throwaways. As a fan of Samuel Johnson, I was delighted when Mazzini tells someone, "Dr. Johnson was right, as he always was . . . " In particular, I love the understated humor throughout the film. If this were a TV show instead of a film, I am certain that they would have dispensed of the laugh track.

Before someone complains about the DVD not offering a widescreen option, I should point out that the original was a 35MM print in 1.37:1 ratio. In other words, this will of necessity be a full screen DVD, and there will never be a widescreen.

THE comic masterpiece.
This film belongs in my top ten list, and is my favourite comedy. Dennis Price is very much the center of this film as an angry and avenging "gentleman" with aspirations to kill his way to a Dukedom. Yet with such lines as "revenge is a dish best served cold", or "I shot an arrow in the air - she fell to earth in Berkeley Square!", we cannot help but laugh at his deadpan matter-of-factness in his flash-back narration. His motivations are based on the neglect of his mother by her family for marrying "beneath" her, and by the initial rejection of his proposal of marriage by the delicious Joan Greenwood as the somewat amoral Sibella. Alec Guiness plays the various victims with a brilliant feeling for each, and yet we can also see them as intentional caricature - particularly the Vicar. The plot then takes some unexpected twists and turns before a wonderful "oh-no!" ending. Finally, the script-writing is superb! Rarely is the English Language so well served in ANY film. Fortunately, they kept the original ambiguous ending, rather than the US release, where it was mandated that the film remove any doubts about his being brough to justice.
The film is black and white, and not DVD subtitled, but it is closed-captioned. In any case, for the US audience, the British accents (particularly Price's) are generally easy to follow. The DVD resolution, contrast and video noise levels are quite good. Sound is par for a 1950 release.

Black Comedy Heaven
I consider this one of the finest, most enjoyable films of all time, and probably the second best comedy of all time (only the great Dr. Strangelove can top it, I submit). This film simply defines black comedy -- that most delicious form of the genre -- and when considering the time of its creation, in the glum early cold war paranoiac late '40s, it must be considered a miracle of cinema. Told in the deadest of deadpan styles, with marvelous performances by Dennis Price and the immortal Alec Guiness (in 8 roles!), it continually horrifies while amusing, as all black comedy must. Time hasn't dimmed its luster one jot. If you haven't seen this gem, run -- don't walk -- to own it and enjoy it over and over again.