Kind Hearts and Coronets (Dennis Price and Alec Guiness)

(Amazon UK link)

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. There are two main stars. Dennis Price plays a young man who has been disinherited from his upper class family. He decides that he wants to inherit the title... so sets out to kill everyone else who is 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, too, 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