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Kind Hearts and Coronets is a classic 1949 Ealing comedy film famously starring Alec Guinness playing eight different members of the D'Ascoyne family. It was very loosely based on a book, Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman. The title is a quotation from Tennyson's 1842 poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere", which proclaims that "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood."
Dennis Price plays "Louis Mazzini" whose mother, having blackened the D'Ascoyne name by eloping with an Italian opera singer, was consequently ostracised by the family. On her death, Louis seeks revenge on the D'Ascoynes, aiming to succeed to the Dukedom of Chalfont. The obstacles in his path his eight relatives ahead of him in line for the title are all played by Alec Guinness; and Louis sets out to murder them all.
Only two relatives die before Mazzini has an opportunity to kill them, the Admiral D'Ascoyne, and the eldest of the group, who was Mazzini's employer before his death of a stroke. In a scene which was a satire of the sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893, the pompous and stupid Admiral D'Ascoyne causes his ship to collide with another one and stands saluting on the bridge whilst it sinks beneath his feet. [1] (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.17870)
In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Kind Hearts and Coronets the 7th greatest British film of all time.
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