The mother of Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price, embodying the very essence of refined urbanity masking a frighteningly sociopathic mind) is banished from her regal family heritage for the grave sin of marrying for love, rather than wealth and position. This leaves Louis with no claim to his family heritage. Stuck in a dead-in job with no prospects and rejected by his longtime sweetheart Sibella (Joan Greenwood) for an implacable dullard with more financial potential (John Penrose), Louis decides to kill his way up the line by knocking off the eight members of the entrenched d'Ascoyne family that stand between him and his dukedom.

In a feat of casting genius, the incomparable Alec Guinness was brought in to play all eight of the d'Ascoyne family members, which range from a stuttering, stuffy vicar, to a ridiculously proud admiral, to a stuck-up playboy and even a first-wave feminist rabble-rouser. Guinness, though not on screen for very long as each character, still manages to endow each of them with enough unique traits and personality to make them instantly memorable. Guinness had already made his screen mark several years earlier in two David Lean adaptations of Charles Dickens classics, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, and Kind Hearts and Coronets put forever to rest any doubt about his unique versatility. Guinness's honorary 1980 Oscar for "advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances" could well describe his work in this one film.

However, as great as Guinness is, he does not completely dominate Kind Hearts and Coronets, a film whose subtle ruthlessness becomes its most enduring trait. Director Robert Hamer set out from the beginning to undermine all conventional morals and values, and he succeeded mightily, even though the film itself never feels as depraved as it really is. This is partially because its dark heart is buried so deeply beneath Hamer and co-screenwriter John Dighton's clever and literate dialogue. Kind Hearts and Coronets is most frequently described as a black comedy, but it's not funny in the usual sense, even by refined British standards. It is more of a slow burn, its understated comedy building in proportion to both Louis's devious antics and the audience's increasing investment in his literally getting away with murder.

In fact, Kind Hearts and Coronets is probably the best film ever devised to illustrate Alfred Hitchcock's theory that the audience can be made to identify with any character on-screen, no matter how vile. Louis Mezzini is the very portrait of an amoral scoundrel, not only in his murderous activities, but in his treatment of everyone around him as a series of pawns to be manipulated to his own end. One could argue that he is redeemed by the fact that his plot is set in motion entirely to exact vengeance for the d'Ascoyne clan's unforgivable treatment of his mother, but that falls short because the obvious pleasure he takes in knocking off his relatives far outweighs any sense of nobility. He is a cad through and through, but one you just can't help siding with.

Copyright ©2006 James Kendrick

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