I’m of the generation that knows Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars movies. Older generations will know him from his dramatic roles in films like The Bridge on the River Kwai or Tunes of Glory. Still others will remember him fondly in a series of comedic films from Ealing Studios. I love that he is remembered for so many different types of films. That’s a testament to how great an actor he was.
Kino Lorber has just upgraded four of his greatest Ealing comedies to 4K UHD and combined them into one lovely boxed set that’s filled with extras.
Buy Alec Guinness: Masterpiece CollectionKind Hearts and Coronets (1949) did very well at the box office when it was released and received plenty of attention from critics (it was nominated for a BAFTA) and has since become something of a national treasure. It is also my least favorite of the four films included in this set.
Guinness gets all the praise for portraying eight different characters, but the film really belongs to Dennis Pryce, who portrays Louis Mazzini, the 10th Duke of Chalfont, who, as the film begins, is in prison, awaiting to be hanged for murder. He seems perfectly happy to be there and has written his memoirs, which he begins reading and which take us back to the beginning (literally the beginning, as he begins his tale at his birth).
His mother was the daughter of the 7th Duke of Chalfont, but when she married an Italian opera singer, she was disowned by the family. As a child, she tells him that he is still eligible to become the duke were the seven members of the family above him in the line of succession to die. When his mother dies and is denied burial at the family estate, he sets out to ensure that’s exactly what happens.
For the rest of the film, we watched Manzzini murder each member of his family above him in the line. Guinness plays each of those family members. It is a wonderful performance, and the film is at its best, when Pryce and Guinness are playing off each other. But by the end, I find it all a bit tedious. The film seems to as well, as in the early scenes we spend quite a bit of time with each family member before they are dispatched, but as the film closes in on its 106-minute runtime, characters are hardly introduced before being killed.
It is still an enjoyable film, and there is some nicely done satire skewering the British class system, but it is definitely the least enjoyable film in this set for me.
The Man in the White Suit (1951) is a much lighter affair while continuing with the studio’s usual satirical fare pitting the common man against the Establishment, in this case both the labor unions and wealthy mill owners.
Guinness plays Sydney Stratton, a gifted chemist obsessed with creating a type of textile that will never get dirty nor ever wear out. He’s been fired from numerous plants due to his insistence on ordering expensive machinery and delivering zero results. Eventually, he does create the perfect fabric and creates a beautiful white suit out of it. The owner of the factory at first is very pleased, but once he realizes that if the clothes made of this fabric never wear out, then soon nobody will ever need to buy anything new. A great deal of humorous chaos ensues.
Kino Lorber released this film on Blu-ray a few years ago, and I reviewed it for this site. My feelings about it remain pretty much the same, as they do with The Lavender Hill Mob, which I covered in the same review.
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) is an utter delight. It just might be my favorite in the set. In it, Guinness portrays Henry “Dutch” Holland, an unambitious bank clerk in charge of the gold-bullion deliveries. He is a quiet, meticulous man who has spent two decades of his life being the perfect employee. Which makes his plan to steal the gold absolutely perfect. He knows exactly how to steal it; the only problem is what to do with it once he has it in his hands. Gold bars aren’t the easiest thing to resell in London once they are stolen, and they are impossible to smuggle outside the country.
But then one day he becomes acquainted with Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), who owns a little foundry, one that makes chintzy tourist knick-knacks, including little Eiffel Towers that he ships to Paris. Realizing he could use Pendlebury to melt the gold into Eiffel Towers and then easily smuggle them to France, he hatches a plan. Naturally, things do not always go to plan, which makes the film an absolute delight to watch.
My thoughts do not remain the same for The Ladykillers (1955). I did not review that one, but I did watch it some 20 years ago, not long after the remake by the Coen Brothers came out. I hated the Coens’s film (it remains my least favorite film by the brothers), but at the time I kept hearing how the original was delightful. When I sat down with it, to my disappointment, I found it wasn’t all that much better. I don’t remember what I disliked about it then. At a guess, I’d say it was due to Alec Guinness. At that point, I only knew him from Star Wars and The Bridge on the River Kwai, so to see him wearing some goofy-looking dentures and acting decidedly non-dramatic must have completely put me off. I’m happy to say that upon this rewatch I have reassessed the film and found it to be quite wonderful.
Guinness is Professor Marcus, the leader of a gang of thieves (which also includes Peter Sellers, Danny Green, Herbert Lom, and Cecil Parker). He’s hatched a plan to rob a bank. To get away with it, he has rented a room from Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), a dottering old lady who will make the perfect cover. Marcus and the gang spend several days at the house pretending to be a group of amateur musicians. This is to get on her good side.
After they’ve robbed the bank, they put the money inside a large trunk and sneak into the train station. Then they enlist Mrs. Wilberforce to pick the trunk up. Naturally, this alleviates all suspicion, as she is just a gentle old lady (and one who often visits the police station with minor complaints). The money will then go into the instrument cases and they’ll easily walk away and into their new lives.
The robbery goes off without a hitch, but then Mrs. Wilberforce discovers what the boys have been up to, and things go completely and hilariously wrong. Having now seen Guinness play comedic roles in these other films made me appreciate what he’s doing here so much more. The rest of the gang is a true pleasure to watch, and Katie Johnson is an absolute delight as Mrs. Wilberforce.
Studio Canal is responsible for the 4K transfers on these four films, and they look absolutely beautiful.
There are a lot of extras on these discs, including an extra disc full of them. I do find it odd that they doubled up The Lavender Hill Mob with The Man in the White Suit only to include an extra disc that’s mostly introductions, interviews, and trailers for the films. One would think they could have separated those two films and then put the extras for each film on that film’s disc. But maybe they ran out of room or something? Either way, there is plenty of material to dig through.
DISC 1: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (4K UHD):
- HDR/DV Restoration by StudioCanal
- Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger
- Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
- Optional English Subtitles
DISC 2: THE LADYKILLERS (4K UHD):
- HDR/DV Restoration by StudioCanal
- Audio Commentary by Film Historian Philip Kemp
- Audio Commentary by Film Historian David Del Valle and Film Historian/Producer Dan Marino
- Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
- Optional English Subtitles
DISC 3: THE LAVENDER HILL MOB / THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (4KUHD):
- HDR/DV Restorations by StudioCanal
- Audio Commentary for THE LAVENDER HILL MOB by Film Historian Jeremy Arnold
- Audio Commentary for THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT by Film Historian Dean Brandum
- Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
- Optional English Subtitles
DISC 4: BONUS FEATURES (BLU-RAY):
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: Introduction by Filmmaker John Landis
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: Those British Faces (Dennis Price Featurette)
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: Interview with Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: Alternate American Ending
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: Theatrical Trailer
- The Lavender Hill Mob: Introduction by Filmmaker Martin Scorsese
- The Lavender Hill Mob: Mavis Nicholson Interviews T.E.B. Clarke
- The Lavender Hill Mob: Audio Interview with Director Charles Crichton
- The Lavender Hill Mob: Theatrical Trailer
- The Man in the White Suit: Interviews with Filmmaker Stephen Frears and Film Critic Ian Christie
- The Man in the White Suit: Theatrical Trailer
- The Ladykillers: Forever Ealing (Documentary)
- The Ladykillers: Interview with Allan Scott
- The Ladykillers: Interview with Ronald Harwood
- The Ladykillers: Interview with Terence Davies
- The Ladykillers: Cleaning Up the Ladykillers (Featurette)
- The Ladykillers: Theatrical Trailer
Alec Guinness was one of the greatest actors to grace the silver screen. While he is widely known for his dramatic abilities, he was a gifted comedic talent as well. I’m thrilled that Kino Lorber has released this set to allow even more people to see his sillier side.
