24 February 2007

Kind Hearts and Coronets (starring Dennis Price and Alec Guiness)


This film was highly recommended to us by a friend whose opinion we tended to agree with. However, our copy of 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' came free with a relative's newspaper. On balance, we were glad that we didn't pay for it.

It's a black and white film, made in 1949. The two main stars are Dennis Price, playing a young man who has been disinherited from his upper class family, but decides that he wants to inherit the title... so sets out to kill everyone else standing in his way. Alec Guiness plays several different parts - all related people, male and female - and does them extremely well.

However, the plot is extremely far-fetched, and the ending rather predictable. We don't have a problem with the bizarre or unlikely, but it was an odd subject matter to be treated as a comedy. There was rather a lot of slapstick humour that left us rolling our eyes more than laughing.

I guess it was worth seeing once, as it's apparently considered quite a classic, and was well made for the era; but we probably won't bother seeing it again.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews

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