Kind Hearts and Coronets
Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) is the product of a marriage between a member of the titled D’Ascoyne and a man beneath her station. Louis’ father dies at his birth leaving his mother penniless and unsupported. Throughout his childhood, Louis is told that he is part of the D’Ascoyne family and that he could someday inherit the family manor. On his mother’s deathbed, he vows to do just that. The difficulty is that there are about eight people, all of them played by Alec Guiness, between him and the land. So he sets about removing them, one by one, in sometimes clever ways.
The film opens as Mazzini is in prison awaiting execution for the one murder he did not commit. As he waits, he writes his memoirs detailing how each of the D’Ascoynes was dispatched, leaving him as the Tenth Duke of Chalfont. The dialog is sparkling if a bit difficult to hear at times, and there’s bit too much narration for my liking. Alec Guiness is fantastic, though. It’s not easy to carry off playing eight different roles without it looking like a gimmick. And even if it is a gimmick, each character has its own personality and mannerisms, including Lady Agatha D’Ascoyne, who is shot down by an arrow as she’s flying a balloon to distribute suffragette literature.
Rating: B; would watch again.
December 19th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Hmm. That sounds interesting. *ADDED*