Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 English black comedy directed by Robert Hamer. It was written by John Dighton and Hamer, and loosely based upon the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907), by Roy Horniman. The Kind Hearts and Coronets title derives from Tennyson's poem Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1842): "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood."
Dennis Price is an heir to a dukedom, but eight membe...
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Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 English black comedy directed by Robert Hamer. It was written by John Dighton and Hamer, and loosely based upon the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907), by Roy Horniman. The Kind Hearts and Coronets title derives from Tennyson's poem Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1842): "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood."
Dennis Price is an heir to a dukedom, but eight members of the D'Ascoyne family precede him; Alec Guinness portrays all eight, including a woman. There are also notable performances from Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood as the femme fatale.
Kind Hearts and Coronets is regarded as one of the best Ealing Studios films, and is listed in Time magazine's top 100, and in the BFI Top 100 British films. In 2000, Total Film magazine readers voted Kind Hearts and Coronets as the twenty-fifth-greatest comedy film, and, in 2004, named it the seventh-greatest British film.
In Edwardian England, Louis...
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