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The Brits are already known for their stiff-lipped humor, and Kind Hearts and Coronets adds to that by giving the entire proceedings a moribund flavor. It isn’t just that the film is politely sarcastic, even by the already rigid standards of the Brits, but it is decidedly dark and twisted in its worldview and demolishment of the British class structure. The basic structure is that of a long-lost relative (Dennis Price) slowly murdering the various members of the D’Ascoyne family, eight of them to be exact, in order to get his hands on the family fortune and title.
The nature of privilege and what an outsider will do to obtain it is ripe material for comedic exploration, but Ealing Studios’ blackest of black comedies exists in a realm of almost anti-humor. I don’t know if much of the film really made me laugh, but I did find it enjoyable and think TIME’s description of it as “fun noir” is more apt. If Kind Hearts won’t produce much guffaws, it will produce a pleasing sense of entertainment from its dry wit, tightrope tonal changes, and series of incandescent performances, including Price’s frustrated outrage, Joan Greenwood’s purring seductress, and Alec Guinness in a tour de force of eight distinct personalities.
It is when Robert Hamer’s camera provides Guinness the chance to do character work that Kind Hearts works best. Using only a little makeup and a lot of Brechtian technique, Guinness demonstrates the breadth of his range by playing various ages, genders, and personality types. How was he not nominated for an Oscar for this? This might be the finest work of his estimable career. When these two zero in on the gallows humor and idiosyncrasies of the D’Ascoyne family, they manage to remind you of the power of Oscar Wilde’s prose. Sometimes a witty, subversive satire is just what the soul needs.
