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Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949,
UK)
In this morbid and black Ealing classic comedy about
inheritance in Edwardian England by director Robert Hamer:
- the remarkable casting of Alec Guinness as all
eight aristocratic D'Ascoyne family relatives, all pictured in
the title screen (young and old, and male and female -- a General,
a snob, a young photographer, a suffragette, an Admiral, a Reverend,
a banker and the Duke) who stood in the way of cold-blooded serial
killer and impoverished, embittered commoner Louis Mazzini (Dennis
Price) - the ninth in line to inherit the Dukedom of Chalfont,
who must murder all the other rival successors, to become the new
Duke of D'Ascoyne
- the many tactics or circumstances of the deaths of
his rivals: snobbish Ascoyne d'Ascoyne (by drowning in a boating
accident), young Henry d'Ascoyne (by fire in a photographic darkroom),
Reverend Lord Henry d'Ascoyne (The Parson) (by poison), suffragette
Lady Agatha d'Ascoyne (by a fall in hot-air balloon), Admiral Lord
Horatio d'Ascoyne (The Admiral) (not murdered, died in naval accident),
General Lord Rufus d'Ascoyne (The General) (by bomb explosion), Lord
d'Ascoyne Ethelred (The Duke) (by gunshot while caught in a trap),
and Lord Henry d'Ascoyne, Sr. (The Banker) (by fatal heart attack)
- while in prison and about to be executed for a murder
he didn't commit (of Lionel Holland (John Penrose)), the flashback
of vengeful Mazzini to his earlier days: ("In those days, I
never had any trouble with the Sixth Commandment") and a recounting
of his parents: his opera-singing father died when seeing his newborn
child for the first time, while his disinherited ostracized widowed
mother (a member of the high-born D'Ascoyne family) was killed by
a train (and refused a burial in the family vault at Chalfont)
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Mazzini's Self-Incriminating Memoirs
Left on Desk in Prison Cell
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- in the satirical and memorable twist ending, Mazzini
was released from prison to a cheering crowd (due to perjured testimony
and a deal with the victim's widow Sibelia Holland (Joan Greenwood));
he was approached by a Tit-Bits reporter (Arthur Lowe) who
asked: "Your Grace, I represent the magazine Tit-Bits by
whom I'm commissioned to approach you for the publication rights
of your memoirs"; Mazzini paused for a second, then replied: "My
memoirs? Oh, my memoirs. My memoirs" -- he glanced backward,
and was reminded that he had left a self-incriminating memoirs
document on his desk in his cell - the camera tracked back to his
cell and the pile of his papers that would reveal his guilt
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Eight D'Ascoyne Family Relatives
The Ending: Commoner Mazzini Released From Prison
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