Kind Hearts and Coronets

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Kind Hearts and Coronets Notes Vital Statistics Director Robert Hamer, born Worcestershire, 1911 Released 14th June, 1950, General Film Distributors (UK) Running time 106 mins Genre - Comedy Drama Synopsis In the early twentieth century, young Louis Mazzini vows to take revenge on his family, the D’Ascoynes, when he learns how they disinherited his mother. Working his way into their trust, Louis begins to bump off his distant relatives (all played by Alec Guinness) one by one, but complications set in when Edith D’Ascoyne, the widow of his first victim, falls in love with him. Notes Did you know? – Ealing Studios is the oldest continuously working film studio in the world, and was built for the use of sound in early British films. The Ealing Comedies were a series of film comedies produced by Ealing Studios between 1947 and 1957. – Kind Hearts and Coronets is regarded as one of the best Ealing Studios films and is listed in Time magazine’s top 100 and the BFI Top 100 British Films. In 2004, Total Film named it as the 7th best ever British film. – Alec Guinness plays eight parts in the film, but was initially only offered four. He claimed that he “read [the screenplay] on a beach in France, collapsed with laughter on the first page, and didn’t even bother to get to the end of the script. I went straight back to the hotel and sent a telegram saying, ‘Why four parts? Why not eight!?” – Chalfont, the family seat of the d’Ascoynes, is Leeds Castle. Far from being anywhere near the Yorkshire city, it is actually four miles east of Maidstone in Kent. Notes Tasks • Consider the scene where six members of the D’Ascoynes family, all played by Alec Guinness, are seen together. In the days before CGI and advanced special effects, how do you think this was done? • What about the action in the film? Would you expect that any stuntmen were used as stand-ins for the actors? If so, which scenes so you think they appeared in? Notes.

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University of Huddersfield Repository
University of Huddersfield Repository Billam, Alistair It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema Original Citation Billam, Alistair (2018) It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34583/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ Submission in fulfilment of Masters by Research University of Huddersfield 2016 It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema Alistair Billam Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter 1: Ealing and post-war British cinema. ................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: The community and social realism in It Always Rains on Sunday ...................................... 25 Chapter 3: Robert Hamer and It Always Rains on Sunday – the wider context.
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Shail, Robert, British Film Directors
BRITISH FILM DIRECTORS INTERNATIONAL FILM DIRECTOrs Series Editor: Robert Shail This series of reference guides covers the key film directors of a particular nation or continent. Each volume introduces the work of 100 contemporary and historically important figures, with entries arranged in alphabetical order as an A–Z. The Introduction to each volume sets out the existing context in relation to the study of the national cinema in question, and the place of the film director within the given production/cultural context. Each entry includes both a select bibliography and a complete filmography, and an index of film titles is provided for easy cross-referencing. BRITISH FILM DIRECTORS A CRITI Robert Shail British national cinema has produced an exceptional track record of innovative, ca creative and internationally recognised filmmakers, amongst them Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell and David Lean. This tradition continues today with L GUIDE the work of directors as diverse as Neil Jordan, Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. This concise, authoritative volume analyses critically the work of 100 British directors, from the innovators of the silent period to contemporary auteurs. An introduction places the individual entries in context and examines the role and status of the director within British film production. Balancing academic rigour ROBE with accessibility, British Film Directors provides an indispensable reference source for film students at all levels, as well as for the general cinema enthusiast. R Key Features T SHAIL • A complete list of each director’s British feature films • Suggested further reading on each filmmaker • A comprehensive career overview, including biographical information and an assessment of the director’s current critical standing Robert Shail is a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Wales Lampeter.
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Alec Guinness
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Kind Hearts and Coronets to Premiere on Talking Pictures TV Talking Pictures TV
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Robert Hamer After Ealing Philip Kemp
The long shadow: Robert Hamer after Ealing philip kemp L M, killer and tenth Duke of Chalfont, emerges from jail, cleared of the murder for which he was about to hang. Waiting for him, along with two attractive rival widows, is a bowler-hatted little man from a popular magazine bidding for his memoirs. ‘My memoirs?’ murmurs Louis, the faintest spasm of panic ruffling his urbanity, and we cut to a pile of pages lying forgotten in the condemned cell: the incriminating manuscript that occupied his supposed last hours on earth. So ends Robert Hamer’s best-known film, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). It’s an elegant, teasing sign-off from a movie that has teased us elegantly all through – luring us into complicity with its cool, confidential voice-over, holding us at arm’s length with its deadpan irony. The final gag, with an amused shrug, invites us to pick our own ending: Louis triumphant, retrieving his manuscript, poised for glory and prosperity; or Louis disgraced, doomed by his own hand. (For the US version, the Breen Office priggishly demanded an added shot of the memoirs in the hands of the authorities.) Films have an eerie habit of mirroring the conditions of their own making – and of their makers. Or is it that we can’t resist reading such reflections into them, indulging ourselves in the enjoyable shudder of the unwitting premonition? Either way, Kind Hearts’ ambiguous close seems to foreshadow the options facing Hamer himself on its completion. His finest film to date, it could have led to a dazzling career.
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The long shadow: Robert Hamer after Ealing philip kemp L M, killer and tenth Duke of Chalfont, emerges from jail, cleared of the murder for which he was about to hang. Waiting for him, along with two attractive rival widows, is a bowler-hatted little man from a popular magazine bidding for his memoirs. ‘My memoirs?’ murmurs Louis, the faintest spasm of panic ruffling his urbanity, and we cut to a pile of pages lying forgotten in the condemned cell: the incriminating manuscript that occupied his supposed last hours on earth. So ends Robert Hamer’s best-known film, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). It’s an elegant, teasing sign-off from a movie that has teased us elegantly all through – luring us into complicity with its cool, confidential voice-over, holding us at arm’s length with its deadpan irony. The final gag, with an amused shrug, invites us to pick our own ending: Louis triumphant, retrieving his manuscript, poised for glory and prosperity; or Louis disgraced, doomed by his own hand. (For the US version, the Breen Office priggishly demanded an added shot of the memoirs in the hands of the authorities.) Films have an eerie habit of mirroring the conditions of their own making – and of their makers. Or is it that we can’t resist reading such reflections into them, indulging ourselves in the enjoyable shudder of the unwitting premonition? Either way, Kind Hearts’ ambiguous close seems to foreshadow the options facing Hamer himself on its completion. His finest film to date, it could have led to a dazzling career.
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The long shadow: Robert Hamer after Ealing philip kemp L M, killer and tenth Duke of Chalfont, emerges from jail, cleared of the murder for which he was about to hang. Waiting for him, along with two attractive rival widows, is a bowler-hatted little man from a popular magazine bidding for his memoirs. ‘My memoirs?’ murmurs Louis, the faintest spasm of panic ruffling his urbanity, and we cut to a pile of pages lying forgotten in the condemned cell: the incriminating manuscript that occupied his supposed last hours on earth. So ends Robert Hamer’s best-known film, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). It’s an elegant, teasing sign-off from a movie that has teased us elegantly all through – luring us into complicity with its cool, confidential voice-over, holding us at arm’s length with its deadpan irony. The final gag, with an amused shrug, invites us to pick our own ending: Louis triumphant, retrieving his manuscript, poised for glory and prosperity; or Louis disgraced, doomed by his own hand. (For the US version, the Breen Office priggishly demanded an added shot of the memoirs in the hands of the authorities.) Films have an eerie habit of mirroring the conditions of their own making – and of their makers. Or is it that we can’t resist reading such reflections into them, indulging ourselves in the enjoyable shudder of the unwitting premonition? Either way, Kind Hearts’ ambiguous close seems to foreshadow the options facing Hamer himself on its completion. His finest film to date, it could have led to a dazzling career.
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Louis Mazzini's Postcard: the Genius Loci of Kind Hearts and Coronets
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