Kind Hearts and CoronetsIn Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) schemes and murders his way to a dukedom. Robert Hamer's pitch-black comedy of manners is legendary for having Alec Guinness play all of Louis's rivals and targets--among them the doddering Reverend Lord Henry D'Ascoyne and the formidably militant suffragette Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne. Perhaps the greatest Ealing comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets is equally a brilliant satire of the English class system and a playful drama of doubles and confused identity. Hamer was a heavy drinker whose career would soon go off the rails; Price was gay and troubled. Michael Newton looks into the turbulent personalities that formed the complex style of Kind Hearts and Coronets, with its dandies and blackmailers, aristocrats and assassins. And he unravels that style's fusion of cynicism, contempt, sparkling wit and philosophical curiosity. 'It is very funny,' Newton says, 'and, in a demonically subtle way, very wise. And for the bitter, the easy self-deprecators, the procrastinators, the snobs, the junkies of possibility, the flirts, the wits, the wastrels . . . it is perhaps the perfect movie.' |
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Contents
Front Matter | 6 |
Body | 7 |
Back Matter | 81 |
Back Matter | 83 |
| 85 | |
Back Matter | 88 |
Back Matter | 89 |
Back Matter | 90 |
Back Cover | 92 |
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actor aesthetic Alec Guinness aristocratic associate producer audience beginning BFI Film Classics BFI Publishing British Films Chalfont Castle cinema clothes critics D'Ascoyne family dandy David death Dennis Price desire director Don Giovanni double Duke of Chalfont Ealing comedies Ealing films Ealing Studios Ealing's Edith elegant Evelyn Waugh family vault father feel film's Guinness's Hallwards Hamer's film Hearts and Coronets Henry D'Ascoyne hero Horniman Horniman's novel Interview with Hamer Israel Rank Joan Greenwood Kind Hearts Kingsmill Lady Agatha Lindsay Anderson Lionel living Lockhart London Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne Lord D'Ascoyne Louis Mazzini Louis's memoir Louis's mother married Maud Redpole middle-class miracle movie murder never Oedipal Oscar Wilde Passport to Pimlico Quoted Rains on Sunday realism revenge Robert Hamer role Roy Horniman San Demetrio London scene script sense sexual shooting Sibella social story style suicide surface tells There's things trap Valerie Hobson Whisky Galore woman words working-class young