All language subtitles for Classic.Movies.The.Story.Of.S03E02.Classic.Movies.Kind.Hearts.&.Coronets.1080p.NOW.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

With so little time remaining
to complete my story,

it is difficult to choose
where to begin it.

Perhaps I should begin
at the beginning.

(BABY CRYING)
I was a healthy baby...

...born of an English mother
and Italian father...

(CHOKES)

who succumbed to a heart attack
at the moment of first
setting eyes on me.

In the circumstances,
it will be understood

that I have
but slight memory of him.

The little I know comes from
what Mama told me.

(SOFT PIANO MUSIC)

Kind Hearts And Coronets
is one of a kind,

a superb pitch-black comedy
about gentile serial killing.

It was made at the great
Ealing Studios,

but don't let that fool you.

Robert Hammer's bespoke fable has
a style entirely its own.

There was the duke.

There was my employer,
Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne.

There was Admiral Horatio D'Ascoyne.

There was
General Lord Rufus D'Ascoyne.

(SNORING)

There was Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne.

Shh.

Would you say that
Kind Hearts And Coronets is one of,

if not the greatest British
comedy ever made?

I think in terms of modernity,
in terms of laughs,

in terms of survivability, I would
argue that it's if not the first,

then it's the top two
of British comedies.

I think it stands up against

almost anything else
that's been made since.

When researching for this programme,
I looked at a lot of bloggers,

young, teenage, Gen Z bloggers,

who were coming to this film
for the first time in the 2020s,

saying where has this film
come from?

And not being able to believe
it was made in the 1940s.

This is such a sharp, funny,
contemporary film.

So I would say yes, essentially.

(SINGING OPERA)

This is the tale of Louis Mazzini,

long lost heir
to the great D'Ascoyne dukedom,

played with exquisite poise by the
criminally neglected Dennis Price.

The measure of his performance
defines the entire film.

On one level,
the plot is about revenge,

Louis' intricate plan to claim
his inheritance

by removing the eight D'Ascoynes
in his way,

all of whom happened
to be played by Alec Guinness.

The Duke, the Reverend, the Banker,

the Admiral, the General,
the Suffragette,

the amateur photographer,
and the insufferable young snob

who plunges to his death
off Maidenhead Weir.

But there is so much more
to Kind Hearts And Coronets

than the graceful art
of assassination.

This is a film
about the rituals of society,

and how we are all deep down
playing a part.

I think Kind Hearts And Coronets
is one of the greatest
British comedies.

You know, people sometimes talk
after 70+ years of a film

being considered so popular,
being liked so much,

that maybe, you know,
it's over-rated.

That's just not true of this movie.

And I think anyone new that you show
it to who hasn't seen it before,

is still struck by the modernity
and the humour of it.

Kind Hearts And Coronets is not just

one of the greatest British
comedies ever made,

it's one of the greatest
comedies ever made.

It has just about everything in it
that you need for...

...laughs, for something
to think about,

for social comment,

and the way it's actually structured
and put together, is perfect.

There isn't a false note in it.

And I think that that in terms
of any film, is extremely rare.

There isn't a millimetre
of celluloid wasted in it.

The casting is absolutely perfect,
could be cast in heaven, almost.

The dialogue is exceptional,

and the way it looks, I think, is...

perfectly attuned to its themes.

While set in a pristine
Edwardian Britain,

the film turns its cynical eye
on the fading aristocracy

of 1949 when it was released.

Unusually, it is the middle class
sizing up their so-called betters.

So what is it that audiences love
in amorality?

What is it that draws us in to,
as you say,

essentially a very bleak story,

but an enormously loveable one?

I think firstly,
it's because it's incredibly funny.

If someone makes you laugh,
you'll forgive a lot of things.

Admittedly, it's a bit of a stretch
to say if someone makes you laugh,

you'll allow them
to get away with murder.

So it's very, very funny,
but it has to be more than that.

There is the initial, there is
the basic casting balance,

and the cruelty of the D'Ascoynes,
which set up...

we don't ever have
any sympathy for the D'Ascoynes.

They've not done anything decent.

So OK, we'll cut him
some slack on that.

He's also incredibly clever
with his murders. He does...

He takes his time.
He does it properly.

He doesn't just turn up
and biff them over the head

with a bit of wood, you know,
it's... these are classic

British country house murders.

And you know, we admire
the art and the skill.

He's putting all the work
into the job that he's doing.

So he's funny, he's skilful,
he's good looking, he's charming.

He is on our side,

and we don't in
any way sympathise with his enemy.

And so I think we fall
for him very quickly.

I think it's easy
for a few of those to slip

and this to become quite
a difficult film,

there have been films
about people working their way

through the deaths of a family,
where you don't have any sympathy

for the leading character
and the films are left
very empty as a result.

So it has to have
all those ingredients.

Everything has to be right.
And we do love an amoral villain,

but not...
not without qualification.

There is also a love triangle afoot.

Between murders, Louis is caught
with contrasting female foils.

On one side are the foibles
of Joan Greenwood's Sibella,

whose heartless social climbing

is only outdone by the volume
of her hats.

On the other side,
is Valerie Hobson's noble Edith,

stalwart widow of Henry D'Ascoyne,

who bears a striking resemblance
to Louis' dead mother.

Mrs D'Ascoyne was beautiful,
but what a prig she was.

I wondered how to ingratiate
myself with her...

...and decided to attack on her own
ground and with her own weapons.

On top of all this wonderful satire
and all the sort of murders
and everything,

there is also a
love triangle going on.

I mean, it is a bit...
This is a film of many layers.

The fascinating thing about this,
again, it's all about contrasts.

Sibella is a sort of wild
sort of romantic,

slightly mercenary,
and very, very sexy creature.

Rejects the proposal of marriage
by Louis,

because he's not rich enough
and then marries one of his friends,

who has got a very rich father.

Edith, at the time that
he's actually killing her husband,

he was struck by her dignity
and poise.

She is a bit of a prig,
she's anti-alcohol,

she is very, very reserved,

but she is extraordinarily
sort of beautiful and dignified.

And I think that to go from
one kind of woman to the other,

is a fascinating sort of see-saw
process because, in a way,

that is also part
of Mazzini's revenge.

Now let me have a look
at the beautiful Mrs Holland.

No, I think I prefer Miss Howard.
So do I.

Louis, it's very wrong of me
to visit you here.

- Why?
- A married woman
calling on a bachelor?

A dangerous bachelor.

In his apartments.
I, dangerous?

These things only become wrong
if people know about them.

This is a very discreet apartment.
That's why I chose it.

So that young women could call
on you with safety.

So that one young woman could.

The innuendo, particularly,
is interesting.

And this film is in 1949
and it's kind of amazing to me

how much it gets away with
on the strength of

it doesn't really show you
that much,

but verbally,
if you're reading between the lines

and you're inferring
what's being said,

particularly with the Joan Greenwood
character, Sibella,

and there the kind
of implications of adultery

between she
and the Dennis Price character...

...it's kind of amazing it got away
with that kind of implication.

And the film is very much
about sexual repression,

and this kind of undertone

of British life where of all
the aspirational things about class,

one of them was perhaps
the acquisition of wealth

in order to achieve not just
a prosperous marriage,

but the woman you wanted,
or the sexual aims that you had.

And so there is a kind of seedy
undertone to the film,

which does feel quite, you know,
quietly sexual.

The film was released in 1949
and people have returned from the
Second World War,

and you have had this generation
of British men

who fought alongside the
aristocracy,

the elite, and found them wanting.
You know, in a way,

that election, the post-war
election, was about the class

that took us into the war,
and who led us badly.

My grandfather's friend
once said when he joined up

at the beginning
of the Second World War in 1939,

one of the questions
was which school did you go to?

And that was basically
how you became an officer,
was based on your education.

So he, Dennis Price,
in many ways, represents us.

He represents a group of people
who cannot believe

that these idiots are in charge
and would happily tear them down.

You know, we don't have
any lingering respect

or noblesse oblige for these people,

you know, no-one has
any sympathy for the rights

of the aristocracy when
they're watching this film in 1949.

That idea, if it existed
in Britain, has long gone.

Above all, it is a film about
a radically unconventional tone,

one which is best described
as demonically subtle,

and very, very British.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

I'm sorry about the girl,

but found some relief in the
reflection that she had presumably,

during the weekend, already
undergone a fate worse than death.

Perhaps I should begin
at the beginning.

(BABY CRYING)
I was a healthy baby...

...born of an English mother
and Italian father...

(CHOKES)

...who succumbed to a heart attack
at the moment of first
setting eyes on me.

The story originates in a strange
book by the forgotten author,
Roy Horniman.

Published in 1907, Israel Rank:
The Autobiography Of A Criminal,

is a satire on the upper classes,
in which murder is a comic device.

Post war sensitivities
to anti-Semitism

persuaded Ealing Studios to change

the central character
from half Jewish,

to a man of Italian ancestry.

So this novel, Israel Rank:
The Autobiography Of A Criminal,

came out in 1907,

and it was not a super popular
or a famous novel,

but it was reprinted around 1946.

And the story is sort of a lively,
witty, sardonic

kind of almost epigrammatic tale
of a serial murderer

who sees a devious way
to the aristocracy

by killing off a bunch
of distant family members,

part of the same
aristocratic family.

And the film is very much loyal

to the basic story of the novel,

and takes on a similarly kind of
sardonic, cocked eyebrow overtone.

If you read it, you will find
that the actual structure and story

is almost identical
to Kind Hearts And Coronets,

except that the film has been...

the script of the film
has been refined

in a way that the novel isn't.

Fascinatingly,

Horniman was an enormous fan
of Oscar Wilde,

and so all those
kind of asterisms and epigrams

within the actual book,

sort of make perfect sense in terms
of when you're writing a screenplay.

So let's talk a little bit
about the background.

It is, in fact,
based on a novel, isn't it?

But a novel that disappeared
without a trace for a while.

Yes. It's based on a novel called

Israel Rank:
The Autobiography Of A Criminal.

And Israel Rank is a character
some people have argued

is loosely based
on the politician Disraeli.

It was an Edwardian novel.

It's very funny, it's very much
in the style of Oscar Wilde.

It in itself is ripping off an
Oscar Wilde novel called

The Crimes of Lord Arthur Saville,

and which in itself is ripping off
Crime and Punishment.

This is one of the beautiful things
about Kind Hearts And Coronets,

is every time you think you've
reached what's under the surface,

you find there's yet another layer.

So we keep going down and down
and down with our references

just with this one novel.

How different
Kind Hearts And Coronets is

from the house style
of Ealing Studios.

There is none
of the cheerful socialism

of Passport To Pimlico,
or Whiskey Galore!,

released in the same
glorious year of 1949.

The prim Edwardian setting
is light years

from the studio's
typical post-war realism.

Head of the studio, Michael Balcon,
had serious misgivings

about a comedy of mass murder,
but let himself be swayed

by his panel of in-house writers.

(OWL HOOTING)

It took a mere three minutes
to substitute petrol

for the paraffin
in the dark room lamp.

And I then repaired to a meadow
and took a few hours' sleep

while awaiting the hour
at which I could reasonably
arrive at the house.

The day dragged by in an agony
of suspense for me.

Henry took photograph
after photograph...

...but seemed to have no urge
whatever to follow it up
with a visit to the dark room.

Bravo Edith!

I began to fear that he had
suddenly taken the pledge.

Guided by Dennis Price's
composed voice-over,

we follow Louis' determination

to avenge his mother's
ignominious death.

Having been cast out
of the D'Ascoyne family

for marrying an Italian opera singer,

she was eventually struck down
by a Croydon tram.

Louis sets about climbing
the social ladder

by bumping off the conceited
D'Ascoynes on the rungs above.

These twits are so arrogantly
certain of their station,

they never see it coming.

The title Kind Hearts And Coronets
comes from a line in a poem

by Lord Alfred Tennyson,
called Lady Clara Vere De Vere,

and it is about a duchess
who is so cruel to a potential...

lower-class lover that
he ends up taking his own life.

And so it is very much almost
a moralistic poem

about the vagaries of class,
inter-class love,

and the kind of cruelty that
we wreak upon each other

in the name of maintaining
sort of order within the classes.

But I have often felt that the
attitude of my husband's family

has failed to move with the times.

That they think too much
of the rights of nobility

and too little of its duties.

The very honesty of your behaviour
would appear to me

to prove them wrong.

Was Lord Tennyson far
from the mark when he wrote

"kind hearts are more than coronets
and simple faith the Norman blood"?

I hope you will stay to lunch.

In that case, I should be
delighted and honoured.

I am personation of a man
of sterling character

with such a resounding success that
Mrs D'Ascoyne invited me to spend

the following Saturday
to Monday with them.

So in many respects,
this was a highly unlikely film

for Ealing Studios to be making.

Yes. Ealing Studios, at this point
at the end of the Second World War,

were making a very particular kind
of comedy

and that comedy was
a community usually...

isolated in some cases for various
reasons, or socially distinct,

gathered together to overcome
outdated or outmoded bureaucracy.

It's the idea of the bacchanal
where good sense prevails,

that people pulling together bring
around the right, decent thing

with some larks along the way
and thumb their noses at authority.

In this case,
there is an authority figure

and there is an individual
who is excluded from that,

but there's no community in this,
there is no community at all.

It is an entirely
transgressive film.

No-one in this film
has any moral compass

that you would want
to set your own by.

It absolutely does not have
any of the kind of...

well, the decent British spirit
will win through in the end.

If it wasn't for the fact
that it's so funny

and so charmingly put together,

it's actually
an incredibly bleak story.

The choice of Robert Hammer
to direct was crucial.

The Cambridge-educated former
economist had worked his way up

to the rank of director
via the editing room.

In 1948, he was riding high at Ealing

but liked to play
the discontented artist,

drawn to the drink
which would curtain a great talent.

There is an element of self portrait
in cynical Louis.

Hammer took a meticulously matter
of fact approach to script,

editing, and performance.

Indeed, his approach to the film

was as ingenious as Louis'
approach to murder.

These people whom I had studied
until I knew their names

and histories as well as I knew my
own,

the more they became monsters
of arrogance and cruelty,

whose only function in the world
was to deprive me of my birthright.

I had seen Chalfont
only as Mama had painted it.

To pass in through
that magnificent gateway

on visitors' day
at a cost of sixpence

was a humiliating experience,
but I forced myself to undergo it.

I wanted a closer view of the target
at which I had determined to aim.

One of the reasons that it appealed
to Robert Hammer, the director,

was precisely
because of the language.

He loved the English language,
he loved the idea of this sort of

slightly decadent articulacy.

And he could see,
certainly in the actual story,

the possibility
of a really fine film.

It did take quite a lot of
persuasion of Michael Balcon,

who was the head of Ealing Studios,

to actually agree
to the film being made

because it is, after all,
a black comedy

about a man who murders
six or, in fact, seven people.

And that was just a little bit
too much for him.

So a young playwright
and budding screenwriter,

who knew Michael Balcon,
called Michael Pertwee,

actually found this book
on a bookshelf in a shop,

that had recently been reprinted,

and he liked it and he showed it
to Michael Balcon,

who was the head honcho
at Ealing Studios,

and who, you know, the entire
creative process of anything

that was coming out at that time,
in that heyday, was down to him.

He decided to let Pertwee
sort of workshop a screenplay

and adaptation
with director Robert Hammer.

Unfortunately, Robert Hammer and
Pertwee did not get along at all.

Pertwee later said that Hammer
started to twitch the moment

they were in the room together, they
just had a clash of personalities.

And eventually Pertwee
would leave the project,

which is unfortunate given that he
had discovered the source material,

and didn't end up getting any credit
on the screenplay.

But this did mean that it brought in
room for John Dighton,

and between him and Robert Hammer,

they then hashed out
this remarkable screenplay,

and this remarkable adaptation,
which has quite a few changes
from the novel,

that became
Kind Hearts And Coronets.

Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's
Monsieur Verdoux,

the point is not to shock,

but to escape the moral conventions
of story-telling.

Hammer's weapon of choice
is language.

The film bubbles with innuendo,
both murderous and sexual.

It is all irony,

framed from the prison
where the anti-hero awaits execution

for the one murder
he did not commit.

A brief history of the events
leading thereto,

written on the eve of his execution,

by Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini,
Tenth Due of Chalfont...

...who ventures to hope
that it may prove not uninteresting

to those who remain to read it.

I decided to proceed methodically

with the elimination of
the remaining minor obstacles.

Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne was a pioneer

in the campaign
for women's suffrage...

...with the inconvenient consequence
that her public appearances

were invariably made
under the watchful eyes
of the Metropolitan Police.

When she was not making
public appearances,

she was in prison
and still more inaccessible.

In fact, before I could learn
of a favourable opportunity,

I had to join the movement myself.

The precise ironic tone
would be impossible

without a pitch-perfect performance
from Dennis Price.

As with Hammer, there was
an element of self portrait.

Price was the son of a Brigadier
General, and mentored by Noel Coward,

whose loquacious disdain is
a clear inspiration for Louis.

Price is the source of the film's
composure,

the idea that it must keep
a straight face throughout,

a comedy that never admits
to a single joke,

giving a whole new meaning
to the term dead pan.

So let's talk a bit
about Dennis Price.

I mean, he is just extraordinary
in the film,

and it's not just a performance.

In a sense, he is the entire tone
of voice of the comedy,

it's a voice-over as well as
acting in the scenes.

But as you are saying,

it's a sensibility
he kind of extends to the piece.

Yes, Dennis Price has...

I mean, for a start, his performance
has this very complex

set of shades and tones
as he goes through the film.

But his voice-over is consistent.

His voice-over is
the voice-over of the man

who is writing his memoirs
the night before he dies.

And he is very, very witty,
very, very dry, very...

...skilful in his language
and his tone, very condescending,

absolutely hilarious
with his wry asides.

There is one point where the very
first murder he commits is,

he sends one of
the D'Ascoynes over a weir,

with a girl
he's having an affair with,

and he says afterwards, "I had to
give myself a moment's thought about
the girl, but then I reasoned, well,

at the weekend she had already
suffered a fate worse than death."

There is no question about it
that Dennis Price, this is his...

the performance of his career.

I am always amazed that for someone
who was,

you know, on the up and up,
he was a good character actor,

he was always playing cads
and things.

In fact, the same year
he played Byron in Bad Lord Byron,

which was an utter flop.

This, of course, is the sort of
major stepping stone for him,

and he should,
as a result of his performance

in Kind Hearts And Coronets,

have become a major leading man
in British cinema.

It didn't do that for him,
and I have always wondered why.

However, what he does in this film
is absolutely incredible

because not only is he...

destined to sort of try and...

work out a series of murders
that will go undetected,

he must do that in a way
that is, of course, funny

at the same time
he is giving this voice-over.

He is actually delivering his
memoirs to us, the audience.

So he is the link to everything.

He is sort of the story-teller,

he is the confessional,

and at the same time,
he does this in the spirit

of wonderful irony with
this sort of slightly sardonic note.

You look more lovely today
than I have ever seen you.

You're a lucky man, Lionel,
take my word for it.

I couldn't help feeling that even
Sibella's capacity for lying

was going to be taxed to the utmost.

The two female leads
are beautifully opposite.

With impeccable timing, and that
husky, teasing, seductive voice,

Joan Greenwood was a comedy great.

Sibella plays the pouting child,

but is as intent
on social betterment as Louis.

The unrufflable Edith suggests
a rare point of decency

amid the black comedy,

but in the hands
of the magnificent Valerie Hobson,

she's as warm as a statue,

fixed to her own relentless
code of conduct.

So Joan Greenwood as Sibella is this
middle-class woman

who's been raised with Louis
Mazzini,

and they clearly have a lot of
chemistry and they've had an affair,

but she wants to marry
someone who is wealthy.

She comes from a middle-class
background and she's very
aspirational.

She doesn't really believe that
he is going to achieve dukedom
in any way.

And so their relationship
remains coloured

by the fact that they both
actually are quite devious people,

and both have their own aims
and their own goals,

which don't really involve
marrying each other,

or legitimising their relationship
in any real way.

It doesn't mean that
they aren't incredibly attracted
to each other at times,

which creates
a really great kind of tension

and chemistry between them.

Valerie Hobson was a very beautiful
actress

who had a really incredible sort of
run of roles in the '40s,

including as Estella, the adult
Estella, in Great Expectations.

But what in that film is sort of
an icy suspicious attitude

towards men,
here is slightly softened.

She's quite warm in this film,
and she's a lot more trusting,

certainly, of men, which is not
necessarily to her benefit

because the man that she's trusting
is Louis Mazzini,

and in fact, she is the widow
of one of his victims.

So the fact that he then is pursuing
her as his possible,

you know, bride to be,
is incredibly dark,

and she is probably,
I guess you might argue, the only...

likeable character in the film,

like, truly likeable in the sense
of being like a decent person.

It doesn't mean you don't enjoy
what's happening with
the other characters,

but she is, you know,
she means well.

The filmmaker's
most delicious concept

was to cast the great Alec Guinness,

only in his 30s, as the D'Ascoynes.

He was holidaying in the south of
France when the script came through,

and had only one request -

rather than play the four parts
as suggested, why not six?

He ended up embodying eight doomed
D'Ascoynes with complete conviction.

From the bumbling relic,
Lord Reverend Henry,

who swigs poisoned port,

to the suffragette, Lady Agatha,
shot down in a hot air balloon.

In another ironic ploy,

it is essential that we still
identify each one as Guinness.

At that moment, the concealed enemy
emerged from behind the kopje.

I held our guns' fire until we could
see the whites of their eyes,

then I gave the order - fire!

Boom, boom, boom...

Now let's talk about Alec Guinness,

and, you know,
what he gave to the film

in playing eight different parts.

You can count ten if you count
portraits and sort of sculptures,

but it's eight performances.

Why do that?

How well was it done,

and what does it kind of have to say
within the film?

When we look at the decision,
it becomes critical to the film.

And I think it moves the film
into the work of genius that it is,

not because, not just, not
just because Alec Guinness is superb

in all of those parts.
Not just because he has the talent

to, with a simple nuance
and simple body language,

convey an entirely different person
from the same bloodline.

It's a bravura performance.

But also because having him play
all of those parts,

it opens up a series of things
that the film can do.

For a start,
as an unreliable narrator,

Louis sees the D'Ascoynes
as his enemy

and he blends them all together
as the obstacles to his success.

So the idea that, for him,
they all have exactly the same face

becomes a psychological trick,
in a way.

He doesn't see their humanity,
he just sees they are all like
Alec Guinness,

they all look the same,
they all are the same,

get them out of the way,
get them out of the way.

It's also a reference,
perhaps, on the idea that
the aristocracy are inbred

and so they all grow to look alike,
the fact that all these faces
are the same,

is also an incredibly convenient
piece of filmmaking shorthand.

We actually need to spend no time
learning about the characters

that we are presented with.

In particular,
there's a rapid sequence of deaths,

where the suffragette, Agatha,

the Admiral Horatio,
and the bumptious colonel

who insists on telling
his war stories,

are all killed very, very quickly.

A bomb, an arrow in her...
her balloon...

"I shot an arrow in the air, she
fell to Earth in Berkeley Square,

and the Admiral going down
with his ship.

We don't need to learn anything.

All we need to do is watch them die
because we know all about them

because they are Alec Guinness.
So it's very swift,

very economical, very funny.

Roger Ebert once said about
Alec Guinness that the reason

that he was so convincing
in the eight different roles

of the D'Ascoyne family,
was that he was such an Everyman.

He was the kind of actor
who even when he was very famous,

wasn't really recognised
on the street in the same way

that other actors of his ilk, you
know, Laurence Olivier, might be.

And so that quality kind of
allowed him

to strangely disappear
into these roles.

Kind Hearts And Coronets is about
the essence of acting.

Each character is playing a part,

one set by social class
or their own wicked aspirations.

Manners are a disguise.

Hammer went in search of what
he called strange human patterns.

Louis' cool, ethical code
judges people

not as good or bad,
but as interesting or dull.

The wonderfully superficial
Edwardian setting was created

through a mix of sound stages and
locations that reflect character.

In contrast to the grand D'Ascoyne
seat captured at Leeds Castle

in Kent and the surrounding villages,

Louis struggles to escape
the growing phenomenon of the suburbs

with their gauche professionals.

It is a very good film
about an evolving British society.

The film to a certain extent,
not only shows the class structures

in place in Britain at that time,

but also I think, the new,
the rise of the merchant class.

And so there were people who aspired

if not to the aristocracy,

then certainly they had a sense that
they wanted to better themselves.

This was a kind of a new idea.

This was the sort of
way out of serfdom,

or if you want to call it that,
and it was increasingly happening.

Of course, the nobles resented that.

They wanted to be in control
all the time.

They wanted to keep the old guard,

they were incredibly conservative
(small c) in their ways.

And so what it does is it reflects
a certain change in social attitude,

which has, you know, continued
right up until through the war,

and especially after the war.

And this film, of course,
came out in 1949,

very interestingly,
when the House of Lords,

which is where Mazzini
is actually on trial,

because if you are a duke or a peer,

you can opt to be tried
in the House of Lords,

as opposed to central criminal
court, like the Old Bailey.

That privilege was abolished
in the same year, 1949.

Now there is no connection
between the film and that,

but I think that it's a
fantastically interesting

coincidence that
that should have occurred.

What works so beautifully is
the marriage of plot and style.

The film consciously leans
into artifice and theatricality.

Every scene is staged for effect.

The image undermines
what is being said.

The director is always one step
ahead of you,

even the title is ironic.

Kind Hearts And Coronets was taken
from the Tennyson poem,

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

the message being that true nobility
lies not in social status,

but in human goodness, which is
in short supply in these circles.

May I say that I think
you have behaved despicably.

Has it ever occurred to you,
Sibella, that we serve
each other right, you and I?

But the night has gone by
and nothing has happened.

It is now
but a few minutes to eight,

and I realise that Sibella came
yesterday merely to tantalise,

to raise my hopes
in order to dash them again.

How unlike me not to have guessed.

But after all,
how very like Sibella.

A written memoir in visual form,

Kind Hearts And Coronets is the most
literary of British comedies.

Here are the satirical barbs
of Oscar Wilde,

Evelyn Waugh, and even Jane Austen.

The shooting script had no word on
how a scene was to be filmed or cut.

All of that was devised
as Hammer rehearsed with his actors.

But it was still dazzlingly complex.

The story is a Russian doll
of flashbacks within flashbacks.

Even the costumes have a narrative.

From the growing finery of Louis'
dandyish suits

to Sibella's increasingly formidable
millinery,

an expression of her own desire
to get ahead.

And there's something strikingly
modern about the literariness.

I mean, you've talked about Oscar
Wilde and all the kind of references.

But that was an unusual game
for a film to be playing.

It's very normal in modern times
for someone to openly admit

that it's calling
all these different things.

But that's going on here. You can
think of Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh...

- Samuel Johnson.
- Samuel Johnson,
Jane Austen to an extent,

and obviously Shakespeare
and Charles Dickens.

And the title which is...
And of course the title, yes.

So it's got this incredibly quality
of self awareness,

and sophistication, which in itself
is almost like an ironic game.

Ironic game, but it doesn't talk
down to its audience.

At no point does it seek
to explain that.

You come along with the joke.

So the references are
this is a smart, funny film,

with literary references
and you'll get them.

No-one has to step aside and point
out this is what we're talking to.

We're not talking about
Samuel Johnson here,

we're talking about
a poem by Tennyson.

It's just assumed.
You know, there's no pandering.

So the whole thing is artfully
constructed in much the way

that a Jane Austen novel would,
these set pieces

and this kind of comedy of manners.

It's got the wordplay of Wilde.
You know, it's got...

There's even something like Conan
Doyle's murder mystery in it.

There's references
to so many different parts
of British literature,

and, really, Hammer was saying this.

He wanted to include
the language that he loves

as much as he could
throughout every part of the film.

Kind Hearts And Coronets is
a dazzling accomplishment.

Even if the American Production Code
required an additional scene

to be inserted
into the ambiguous ending.

Michael Balcon who had been
so disapproving at first,

considered it his favourite
Ealing production.

But it is so much more than
another Ealing Comedy.

It is a masterpiece that
encourages endless readings.

The reason that Kind Hearts
And Coronets is actually unique

as a work of art,
and is a work of art,

is because of all the elements
that coalesced

at the time that it was made.

I don't think there is any other
film that exists that has...

...delivered so perfectly

and so perfectly poised,

a story
that could have been a thriller,

or it could have been a satire,

or it could have been
a sort of dark romance.

But this is all three.

This is all three
welded seamlessly together.

We used to get a lot of this
stuff in the Crimea.

One thing the Ruskies
do really well.

Not an atom of him was left.

I think there are two reasons,
really,

why the film doesn't feel
in bad taste.

One is just the sense of humour.

It's always kind of winking
and nodding.

It's always got its tongue in cheek,
and the deaths are,

they're violent,
but they're quite cartoonish.

The characters feel, you know,
the aristocratic characters

do not feel
particularly sympathetic.

They are all quite annoying
and mannered.

Of course, Guinness is doing
an incredible job

of breeding life into them.

The one likeable character,

the one who initially hires
Louis Mazzini

and who Mazzini later expresses
regret about possibly
having to kill,

and he feels lucky
that he doesn't have to kill him

because he drops dead of shock,

There is this sense that

you're not completely
on the side of Mazzini, either.

This is someone who, you know,
he might be likeable

and he might be a cad, but he is
someone who is capable

of real cold callous calculation

and that he doesn't even bat
an eyelid at the idea

that he is more than happy to treat
people as collateral damage.

You can find the film's influence
within the Ealing stable.

The Ladykillers,
satisfyingly inverts the idea

with a prim old lady killing off
a gang of crooks,

led by a heavily disguised
Alec Guinness.

That film featured Peter Sellers,

who paid homage
to Kind Hearts And Coronets,

with his multiple roles
in Dr Strangelove,

a habit he continued
throughout his career.

Such buoyant cynicism
and precision filmmaking

inspired everyone from Martin
Scorsese to the Coen Brothers.

Kind Hearts And Coronets creates the
idea of the great movie voice-over,

the voice-over
that dictates the tone,

and Scorsese watched it avidly
for Goodfellas.

He wanted to understand how that tone
of voice can shape an entire film.

So you know, this prim British film

has influenced extraordinarily
large amounts of things.

When you look at Peter Sellers,
who borrowed the idea

of the multiple parts that
he does in Doctor Strangelove

and on into his career, he took it
from Kind Hearts And Coronets.

I mean,
I love the Goodfellas reference

because I think of Louis Mazzini,

the half Italian operator
killing his way to the top

and compare it with Goodfellas,

and you think, well,
how different actually are those-

Well, Henry Hill...
He's half Italian as well.

Absolutely.
There's so many similarities.

I love the fact that Scorsese was
inspired by Kind Hearts And Coronets

to create Henry Hill
and his voice-over.

Obviously, very different ending.

No ambiguity in Henry Hill's ending.

But there's so many people
who've referenced it.

If you go through the list
of TV series or films

that have quoted from it
or alluded to it,

or have remade certain aspects of it

or done certain styles of it,

I mean the idea
of just working your way

through a series of murders
to get what you want,

it is the template
of this kind of killing.

And no-one, I would say,
has quite equalled it.

I think of all the people
who have echoed it,

who have homaged it,
who have noted it,

who have tried to toy with it
and, you know,

maybe even tried to, "Oh, we'll make
this a little bit funnier,

we'll do it in a more
contemporary style."

No-one has come close
to this unique piece of filmmaking,

this piece of filmmaking
where you have this director

who is, as it turns out,
at the peak of his career,

the last great thing
he's going to make,

and possibly without doubt, the
greatest piece of work he was going
to make.

To some degree, Dennis Price
never quite achieved this level.

I mean, so many people working
on this film were delivering

their best ever performance,
or their best ever contribution,

or creating something new.

What makes Kind Hearts And Coronets

perhaps the greatest
of all British comedies

is that it has greater purpose
than simply sardonic daring.

Robert Hammer's film holds up
a non-flattering mirror

to Britishness
and human nature as a whole.

But in its ultimate irony,
it is a celebration

of the endless peculiarity,

originality, and joy of being alive.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

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