Alec Guinness

A classic collection of the early films of Alec Guinness.

In the Ealing comedy Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949), young Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) vows to take revenge on his family, the D'Ascoynes, when he learns how they disinherited his mother. Working his way into their trust, Louis begins to bump off his distant relatives (all played by Guinness) one by one, but complications set in when Edith D'Ascoyne (Valerie Hobson), the widow of his first victim, falls in love with him.

In Last Holiday (1950), Guiness plays an agricultural salesman who finds out he has a short time to live. Taking a final holiday, he realises that he was actually a more interesting person than he allowed himself to be.

In The Man In The White Suit (1951), he plays eccentric Sidney Stratton, a laboratory cleaner in a textile factory, who invents a material that will neither wear out nor become dirty. Initially hailed as a great discovery, Sidney's astonishing invention is suffocated by the management when they realise that if it never wears out, people will only ever have to purchase one suit of clothing.

In The Captain's Paradise (1953), Guinness stars as Mediterranean ferryboat Captain Henry St. James, who believes in the notion of 'a girl in every port'. For Henry has a wife on both sides of the water. There is Maude (Celia Johnson) in Gibraltar and Nita (Yvonne DeCarlo) in Tangiers. Everything is perfect as long as neither woman decides to visit the other port.

In Barnacle Bill (1957), Guiness plays retired Navy Captain Ambrose, who buys a decrepit amusement pier in 'Sandcastle-On-Sea' planning to turn it into a going concern. But when the local council object to the idea, planning to close the pier down, Ambrose has to use some lateral thinking to save the day.

First released: Monday 1st October 2007