KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949) B/W 105m dir: Robert Hamer

w/Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Audrey Fildes, Miles Malleson, Clive Morton, John Penrose, Cecil Ramage, Hugh Griffith

Guinness is sensational playing eight relatives whom Price must eliminate in order to claim a title.

From The Movie Guide: "Coming on the heels of GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST, this was the film that made Alec Guinness an international star. Although Dennis Price has the largest single role in the picture (and plays it beautifully), Guinness took the lion's share of the credit for its success with a tour de force performance as no less than eight characters, all members of the same family. A black comedy about mass murder, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS is one of the British film industry's funniest movies, as well as one of the most memorable and notorious. ...

"The film is full of bright dialogue and quotable quotes ('Revenge is the dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold!'). Robert Hamer (who also directed) and John Dighton loosely based the story on Roy Horniman's turn-of-the-century novel Israel Rank, dispensing with all but the core of the book to write the sharp screenplay. The result, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, is one of those films that can be seen repeatedly and still offer surprises. As a combination of rollicking black humor and satirical pokes at the English upper crust, nothing else comes close."