Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) on Netflix
Louis Mazzini's mother is disowned for marrying an Italian opera singer, and the D'Ascoynes deny her a place in the family vault. Spurned by Sibella, he decides to take the dukedom.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini grows up poor in Edwardian England. His mother, a daughter of the 7th Duke of Chalfont, was disowned by her family for marrying an Italian opera singer, and she raises Louis on stories of the D'Ascoyne line. After she dies, the family refuses her request to rest in the vault at Chalfont Castle. Louis works as a draper's assistant. He proposes to Sibella Hallward, his childhood friend, and she laughs at the idea and marries Lionel Holland, a rich man's son. A quarrel with a customer, Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, costs him his job. Louis resolves to take the dukedom by removing the eight D'Ascoynes standing between him and the title.
Cast
- Eric Messiteras Burgoyne
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Hamer asked Guinness to hold his salute as the water rose over his head, so that the admiral’s cap would float on the surface; Guinness, who practiced yoga and said he could hold his breath for four minutes, was attached to the deck by wires, and the crew forgot to release him until four minutes after the scene ended.- Alec Guinness was originally offered only four D’Ascoyne parts; he read the screenplay on a beach in France, collapsed with laughter on the first page and sent a telegram saying, “Why four parts? Why not eight!?”
- In one shot Guinness appears as six of his own characters at once, achieved by masking the lens and re-exposing the film with Guinness in different positions over several days; cinematographer Douglas Slocombe recalled sleeping in the studio so nobody would touch the camera in between.
- Studio boss Michael Balcon was initially against making the film at all, telling colleagues "I'm not going to make a comedy about eight murders," and warned director Robert Hamer that he was trying to sell the British public "that most unsaleable commodity" -- irony.
SPOILER
The death of Admiral Horatio D’Ascoyne was inspired by the collision between HMS Victoria and HMS Camperdown off Tripoli in 1893, caused by an order given by Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon; Victoria was sunk with the loss of over 350 men.- A musical version, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, opened on Broadway in 2013 with all the victims played by one actor, Jefferson Mays; Louis Mazzini became Monty Navarro, the D’Ascoynes became the D’Ysquiths, and the show won four Tony Awards including Best Musical.
- The main character was originally the half-Jewish Israel Rank rather than the half-Italian Louis Mazzini; the change was brought about by the “post-war sensitivity about anti-Semitism” and the moral stance of the films produced by Ealing.
