Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - film review

In the early 1900s, Louis Mazzini, tenth Duke of Chalfont, finds himself in prison, condemned for murder.   On the eve of his execution, he begins to write an account of how he came to arrive at such a sorry end.   The story begins many years ago when his mother, an offshoot of the aristocratic D’Ascoyne family, was cruelly banished to darkest suburbia for marrying beneath her.  His father dying shortly after his birth, Louis grew up in virtual poverty and his mother died at an early age.  When the D’Ascoynes refused even to allow his mother to be buried in the family vault, Louis swore that he would take revenge, by killing each of the eight members of the family that stood between him and the title of Duke of Chalfont...

A very strong candidate for the best of the films made by Ealing Studios, Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of the all-time classics of British comedy, a superlative blend of social satire and black comedy with an irresistible appeal.   Hardly anything evokes the dignified yet slightly musty aura of the English stately home and the iniquities of the British class system more forcefully than this deliciously subversive film.

It was this film which catapulted Alec Guinness to stardom for his portrayal of the eight members of the D’Ascoyne family, a tour de force performance which established his reputation as a supremely talented character actor.   Guinness had previously won acclaim for his role as Fagin in David Lean’s Oliver Twist (1948) and would feature in many subsequent Ealing films, notably The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), before becoming a major star of British cinema.

Whilst Alec Guinness is the film’s biggest draw, he is not its lead actor.  That honour was conferred on Dennis Price, whose Louis Mazzini is as genteel and well-spoken a serial killer you could possibly home to meet.  He’s the kind that would offer you a champagne cocktail and quote a few lines from Milton whilst tying the rope around your neck.  Joan Greenwood is the seductively villainous Sibella, a smoulderingly earthy femme fatale counterpoint to Price’s icily reserved English gentleman.  Watching Greenwood and Price play off each other is like watching a beautifully choreographed fencing match.

The inspiration for Kind Hearts and Coronets was Roy Horniman’s novel, Israel Rank, in which the leading character was half-Jewish.  Fearing that the idea of a Jewish murderer was just too much for public sensibilities at the time, the film’s authors made the character half-Italian instead, the rationale being presumably that an Italian serial killer would be considerably less offensive than a Jewish one.  The title of the film comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1842 poem, Lady Clara Vere de Vere ("Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood...").  The location used for Chalfont, the family home of the D’Ascoynes, was Leeds Castle in Kent, England.

Although it is often grouped with the other Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets stands apart as something quite different.  It has a much darker tone than the other comedies, which matches its subject perfectly – the amorality of the central character being a brilliant caricature of how the aristocracy were regarded, as aloof, emotionally barren and a law unto themselves.  The humour, which is drier than a Scotsman’s drinks cabinet, has more than a touch of the Oscar Wildes, relying more on sophisticated word play than quick one-liners and pratfalls.  All this goes to make Kind Hearts and Coronets the most enjoyable, intellectually rewarding and popular of British film comedies.

© James Travers 2008

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