Tripwire Reviews StudioCanal’s Kind Hearts And Coronets UHD 4K Restoration

Making A Killing

Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman reviews StudioCanal’s Kind Hearts And Coronets out on UHD/ 4K from next week…

Kind Hearts And Coronets
Director: Robert Hamer
Stars: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood

Kind Hearts and Coronets is that rare gem in British film history – a sleeper masterpiece that subtly satirises both Edwardian snobbery and class obsession but also the same issues regarding the era in which it was made. One of the best and most treasured movies ever to come out of Britain, the film still doesn’t quite get its due from experts and journalists, due to its timeless quality and seemingly effortless and understated storytelling and dialogue. It’s a movie that is lost in time to current audiences – a sepia tinted document that would seem archaic to the uninterested observer. Yet its subtlety is key – this was a rebellious, subversive and progressive work underneath the finery and etiquette, and a tale underpinned by anger and revenge. And like all great or pivotal films or plays, its themes still resonate, regardless of the dark humour that is its calling card.

Due to the distance between now and its production, its period setting seems almost like it was made in the 1900s, such is its painstaking attention to detail, both in costume and cadences. Indeed, there would’ve been people around at that point who would’ve remembered that era, a time that was even more hidebound and steeped in formality than when the film was made, in the mid-20^th century.

The plot itself is very much classic Ealing, the lauded studio that became synonymous with comedies during the post-war years – a deceptively straightforward yarn about serial murder by the louche, sly and cunning Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), the protagonist of the piece. Louis is a young man born into relative poverty due to circumstance, but more importantly, the strictures of class elitism. His mother, the youngest daughter of the 7th Duke of Chalfont, had made the grave mistake of eloping with an Italian opera singer named Mazzini, which led to her being shunned by her family for marrying beneath her. Soon afterwards his father dies, leaving his mother to fend for herself. As he enters adulthood, he learns that his mother is eligible for the dukedom of Chalfont, and has written to her relative, Lord Ascoyne D’Ascoyne (Alec Guinness, who plays all the D’Ascoyne family), to employ Louis at his bank, but he is barred from doing so.

From this point, Louis sees his life spiral downwards, as he is forced to work in a draper’s, a position he considers below his station. He proposes to his childhood friend Sibella (Joan Greenwood) but is rejected for his impecuniousness, while his now deceased mother is also banned from being interred in the family burial vault at Chalfont.  A chance meeting with the banker’s son Ascoyne D’Ascoyne leads to him being instantly sacked from his job for angrily reacting to D’Ascoyne’s appallingly snooty behaviour.

And it is this incident that leads Louis to plot against the D’Ascoyne clan, by murdering all the heirs to the dukedom so that he himself will become the title holder of said realm. From here the fun begins, as the ruthless Louis comedically dispatches each D’Ascoyne in a variety of lyrical and graceful ways, his commentary on the proceedings adding that extra twist of irony and disengagement from each act. Throughout this process he socially climbs, attracting the favours of the mercenary and duplicitous Sibella, along with the straight-laced, statuesque widow of one of his victims, Edith (Valerie Hobson), who he considers a fitting duchess.

What is so remarkable about Kind Hearts and Coronets is its supreme confidence – it is uncompromising in its tone and consistency, while its script and stately portrayal of such a starched and inflexible era is pitch perfect and worthy of Wilde at his best. Louis’ commentary throughout the film is pithy and epigrammatic, and a wonderful counterpoint to his psychosis. If anything his measured, almost sombre voiceover humanises our non-hero, in what is a brilliant inversion that somehow evaded any opprobrium from the censors, or the public. The D’Ascoyne ensemble are, regardless of whether they are arrogant, bumbling or just plain bonkers, mere ninepins for Louis’ lurid schemes.

Which brings us to the acting, which is, needless to say, superlative. Guinness’s turn as the eight D’Ascoynes is a masterclass, as nearly all of his characters are individual enough that they are not mere ciphers. It is clear that Guinness is enjoying himself, especially when he plays Lady Agatha, the suffragette, or Admiral Lord Horatio. But his best work in this film is when he portrays the two least likeable D’Ascoynes – Ethelred and young D’Ascoyne, both of whom are authentically ghastly, arrogant and hardened by their status.

However, the star of the movie is unquestionably Dennis Price. Price was an actor who never really came across as a leading man, nor did he have a great deal of range in what was a somewhat chequered career. However, Kind Hearts fitted him like a glove, giving him a role where his slightly sinister, fey looks and knack for understatement were exactly what the character demanded. Having generally played authority figures, Louis’ passive aggressive, unflappably controlled martinet was where Price briefly became magnetic, his performance a tour de force. Guinness may have gotten a great deal of the plaudits, but this was Price’s film, and his quietly seething, nuanced effort carried the picture, anchoring it from the occasional (and typical of the time) frivolous humour.

Kind Hearts was indeed the joker in the pack when it came to Ealing comedies – a manifestly disciplined piece, brimming with unspoken and implied edge and menace, whose skewed humour still successfully played to cinemagoers of that time. It never plays to the gallery, which is why it rewards further viewings – the accoutrements of wealth, Louis’ rise to aristocratic levels mirrored by his ever more luxurious clothing, and Joan Greenwood’s brilliant turn as the sultry Sibella are all worthy of a rewatch.

Considered to be one of the top three films in British cinema history, along with The Third Man and Lawrence of Arabia, Kind Hearts and Coronets is about to be rereleased on UHD / 4K Blu-ray and DVD, with plenty of excellent and informative extras for the dedicated film buff – two audio commentaries, an introduction by John Landis, interviews with leading film critics, a documentary about Dennis Price’s career and further features about Ealing Studios provide more than enough context. Needless to say, highest recommendation.

Kind Hearts And Coronets is available as a 4K UHD restoration from StudioCanal from Monday 22 April