1949 black comedy, dir. Robert Hamer, Dennis Price, Alec Guinness:
IMDb /
allmovie. Growing up in
poverty after his mother was cast off by her family for marrying
unwisely and below herself, Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini determines to have
his revenge.
What a fine film from an unpromising start! The 1907 book Israel
Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal on which this was based is much
more explicit: the protagonist is a criminal because of his Jewish
father, and the antisemitic stereotyping only gets worse from there.
But, well, it was 1949 and maybe "all Jews are intrinsically evil"
wouldn't have played so well any more. So not only is Louis' deceased
father now an Italian, if anything can get the blame for his becoming
the person he is it's his mother's stories of the wealth that they both
should, rightfully, have had a share in.
While people talk about Alec Guinness's eight roles, it's Dennis Price
who steals the show for me: one viewer can sympathise with him as he
sets out to murder his way to wealth and power after every legitimate
route to happiness is stripped away from him, while another can regard
him as the monster that he (also) is.
"I was sorry about the girl, but found some relief in the reflection
that she had during the weekend presumably undergone a fate worse
than death."
And if one's in any doubt about the calibre of the actors here:
Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood! (They would only play together on
one other occasion, in 1954's Knave of Hearts.)
But one must concede that the murders, and the classic moments of
crossing off the family tree, are the best bits. The arguments between
Louis and Sibella (the sweetheart of his impoverished youth), as she
shifts from casual desire for the toy she discarded now that it looks
fun again to explicit blackmail, can sometimes drag, as can the
lengthy scenes of Louis' imprisonment. Perhaps I simply have low
taste. But I love it anyway.
I talk about this film further on
Ribbon of Memes.