Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Kind Hearts and Coronets is an almost perfect black comedy. Set at the turn of the 20th century the plot is taken loosely from the 1907 novel  Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by British author Roy Horniman. The story concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini (Dennis Price, excellent), the son of the black sheep of the prestigious D'Ascoyne family. Louis mother (Audrey Fildes) had angered her family when she married for love to an Italian opera singer (also played by Price), but the man died young around the time of the birth of their only son. Though Louis's mother tried for years to enlist her family's help for herself and her son she was consistently rebuffed, she made due with what little she had, raised Louis, and when he came of age tried again to get her family's aid in assisting her son to get into a good profession, all to no avail. Her final request, to be buried in the family crypt, was also refused, and this last indignity prompted her son to set about on a murderous quest to eliminate the eight heirs who stood in his way to assume the family dukedom.

This dry comedy is carried very effectively by lead Dennis Price, who is so good in it that its an utter shame that he didn't go on to have a more successful career. Looking into Mr. Price it seems his major obstacles were likely his drinking, gambling, and tax problems, he was also a homosexual but so were many of Britain's greatest actors. The film has good supporting players, including Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood as Price's too competing love interests, character actor Miles Malleson also appears as a very polite hangman. But its Alec Guinness who pulls out all the stops playing a total of 9 D'Ascoyne family members, including a woman. Kind Hearts and Coronets is a jewel of a film, a stand out even amidst the golden period of post war British comedies. It's a rare comedy that warrants four stars, but this one does. ****