Kind hearts and coronets

Britain 1949

Dir: Robert Hamer

102 mins

Cast: Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood; based on the novel Israel Rank by Roy Horniman

Rating: PG

Although the basic idea was drawn from a novel by Roy Horniman, the tone of the film was quite different from that of the original.  Robert Hamer's very individual comedy made a wide impact at the time of its first appearance, not least because of the striking contrast it made to the already established Ealing style of warm-hearted humour and naturalistic social settings.  Alec Guinness gave a virtuoso performance of eight relations all destined to become the victims of a gentlemanly murderer, impeccably played by Dennis Price, but astonishing as was this tour de force the success of the film lies mainly in the astringency of its script and the polished direction.  The pace, in particular, is impeccable, maintaining a measured development that heightens both the stylish comedy and the sense of period.

The Oxford companion to film

It was one of the tragedies of the British cinema when the BBC bought Ealing Studios in 1955 for just under a million dollars, for during the previous decade, under the guidance of Sir Michael Balcon, directors there such as Alexander Mackendrick, Henry Cornelius, and Charles Crichton were able to produce a series of caricatures of English life that remain among the funniest comedies on film.  Kind hearts and coronets is the classic of this era, by virtue of its biting dialogue, its original theme, and superbly inventive incidents, and sterling performances from Dennis Price and Alec Guinness, which epitomise the English flair for understatement.  The story is diabolical in its twists and turns. ...

 Peter Cowie, Seventy years of cinema

Among the earliest of the Ealing comedies produced by Sir Michael Balcon's West London hothouse of comedic creativity, and a prime example of their distinctively British humour, Kind hearts and coronets is without equal for grace and savoir faire in black comedy.  It is sophisticated, deliciously sly, and resolved with another Ealing trademark, the smart sting in the tail. ... Hamer's all-too-brief directorial heyday peaked with Kind hearts and coronets.  He had come to the film with a valuable background as an editor and found a balance between the smart dialogue and pithy, satiric visual vignettes.  The slick black-and-white work of wartime news cameraman-turned-cinematographer Douglas Slocombe led to a much longer and prolific career: he shot many classic British films of the 1960s and, later, such international hits as the Indiana Jones trilogy.

1001 movies you must see before you die