Dennis Price

The Wrong Arm Of The Law, Blu-ray review

The restoration for Blu-ray is stunning, with an incredibly crisp and sharp black and white print belying its six decades of age.

Why Ealing's murderous comedy is the greatest UK film

For as long as I can remember, I have considered Kind Hearts and Coronets to be the greatest film in the history of British cinema.

On the set of Kind Hearts and Coronets - in pictures

Released in 1949, Kind Hearts and Coronets remains one of the all time classics of British cinema. As a 4k restoration is released for its 70th anniversary, we see actors Dennis Price, Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood and director Robert Hamer at work.

A satirical antidote to the stiff-upper-lip war films of the 40s and 50s. This is more the province of a Carry On Marching, with naive national serviceman Ian Carmichael embarking on an unofficial raid on Germany to liberate Nazi-acquired art treasures. One of the great fighting platoons of British comedy - including Terry Thomas, Dennis Price and Richard Attenborough - work classic manoeuvres.

Hamer's blade-sharp Ealing comedy is celebrated for Alec Guinness's multifaceted performance as all eight of the doomed D'Ascoynes, but there are other treasures: the suave malice of Dennis Price's draper's assistant-cum-serial killer, Mazzini, who decides to murder his way to the family dukedom; the portrayal of Edwardian England and its snobby mores; and the delicious glee with which the awful upper classes are dispatched (Mazzini would know how to deal with the Bullingdon crowd). A bitter and subversive tale.

As Alec Guinness did in the 1949 film version of Kind Hearts and Coronets, Alistair McGowan took all the parts of all the Gascoynes (D'Ascoynes in the film) and - with the possible exception of his Lady Edith - did so nimbly and amusingly. Natalie Walter as the ruthless Unity (the Dennis Price part) impressed. It was the script that limped, always a minute behind listener expectation.

For me, Kind Hearts and Coronets is my favourite of the Ealing Comedies. As a result I was somewhat worried by the fact that someone would want to make a sequel to it.

In this story, following the death of Duke Louis (Dennis Price in the film), his wife Lady Edith takes the title, refusing to recognise the claim issued by Louis's biological daughter Unity Holland (played by Natalie Walter). Unity decides to get the title the old fashioned way - murdering all the other claimants...

The story sees Unity beginning her murder spree in 1939, through World War Two and after it. She then starts to kill the seven claimants: Lady Edith Gascoyne, fighter pilot Louis Gascoyne, spiv Henry Gascoyne, far-right twins Adalbert and Ughtred Gascoyne, socialist Marmaduke Gascoyne, and rubbish poet Ronald Gascoyne, all of whom are played by Alistair McGowan.

McGowan obviously has it easier than Guinness did. For starters, two of the characters are twins so they can have the same sort of voice. Also, Marmaduke suffers from a stutter so that gives another silly voice to play with.

However, it seems to have pulled it off. I don't think that this story is in any way a sort of sacrilege against the original; after all, the film changes bits from the original novel (in the novel the murderer was half-Jewish, not half-Italian).

An entertaining tale, then, with a nice story and set up...

Tricky though the film Kind Hearts and Coronets must have been for the many-roled Alec Guinness, it was almost certainly a doddle compared with Alistair McGowan's feat of portraying seven members of the Gascoyne family by voice alone, in yesterday's sequel. That there was never any doubt as to who was supposed to be whom was a tribute to his rightly lauded mimetic powers.

Kind Hearts and Coronets: Like Father, Like Daughter saw Unity Holland (daughter of the original film's killer, played by Dennis Price) seeking her rightful inheritance by knocking off the six sons of Lady Edith Gascoyne. It provided a lovely, featherlight way to while away an hour, nicely written by David Spicer, with Natalie Walter as the engagingly amoral Unity. When war breaks out, she records: "I offered to do my bit for King and country, but - rather shortsightedly in my case - women were deemed incapable of killing."