Kind Hearts and Coronets 4K 1949 Ultra HD 2160p

The year is 1902. Unjustly accused of murdering a distant relative, the English peer Louis Mazzini, Duke of Shelfont, is in prison and writing his frank memoirs. From them we learn that once his mother Edith d'Escoigne surprised the whole family by marrying an Italian tenor.

Louis, the fruit of their love, loved to contemplate the family tree with longing, calculating when he will become a duke, and how he can eliminate standing in the way of the goal of eight relatives, one more harmful than the other. One day he realizes that naturally they are in no hurry to go to the next world, and takes matters into his own hands. But here the prisoner puts his pen aside - he is justified, and with honors released. But he forgot his story in his cell....

User Review
This movie is one of the great examples of Ealing Studios comedy from the post-war years when producer Michael Bolkan was at the helm of that studio. Of course in 1948 the content of this movie was considered obscene, but now we can enjoy this comedy, as by today's standards “Kind Hearts and Crowns” has not retained one bit of its then “obscene” subject matter.

In England of King Edward VII's time, in a prison cell, the day before his execution, young Louis Mazzini D'Escoigne, Duke of Chalfont is writing his memoirs.

His mother was the daughter of Duke D'Escoigne, who married an Italian opera singer against the will of the family and because of this she is disinherited. Some time later her son Luis is born and the opera singer dies in the early days of his son's life. Luis grew up in poverty, but his mother constantly reminded him of his noble origins. When Louis grows up his mother writes to one of her relatives, the banker D'Escoin, asking to accept her son in the bank, but the letter goes unanswered and the young man is forced to work in a clothing store. Some time later Louis's mother dies and asks to be buried in the family tomb of the D'Escoins, but the letter is answered by the Duke D'Escoin, who disowns both her and Louis. Furious Luis wants to take revenge on his relatives and become a duke himself, but there are eight pretenders to the title standing in his way and the young man thinks it is a pipe dream. But after a while he sees in the store where he works the son of the banker Escoin D'Escoin and because of a quarrel with him Louis is fired. Luis uses his salary to go to the hotel where young D'Escoigne and his girlfriend are staying and he manages to kill them by letting the boat go downstream. Louis then writes a letter of condolence to D'Escoigne D'Escoigne, a banker, and gets a job at the bank while continuing to quietly straighten out the other contenders for the title...

A thoughtful viewer watching the movie immediately has an analogy with Charlie Chaplin's “comedy of murder” “Monsieur Verdoux”, which was released a year earlier. These two films are related tabooed at the time of the subject - black humor about murder and charming protagonists. But the characters have different motives: if Henri Verdoux started killing widows because of the loss of his job in the bank and the need to help his family, then Louis Mazzini started killing his relatives to clear the way to his title and avenge his poor childhood. Also, “Monsieur Verdoux” contains strong anti-war overtones (“Killing one man makes you a villain, but killing millions makes you a hero”) and criticism of capitalism, while “Kind Hearts and Crowns” has a different theme.

“Kind Hearts and Crowns” perfectly show the mores of England in the early XX century. and above all the classiness of the society of that time, in the upper strata of which Louis Mazzini is trying to make his way. It also mocks most English people's view of colonial peoples as barbarians in one scene when Mazzini, disguised as a priest in one of the British colonies, goes to kill Rev. D'Escoigne and passes off his growling as Mathabilians.

One can even see in this movie the birth of socialist ideas in then England. This is expressed in the character of Edith, the widow of one of the D'Escoins, whom Louis wants to marry. She preaches the ideas of improving the lives of ordinary people, refusing excessive luxury, and Louis manages to charm her with the story of his poor childhood because the D'Eskoynes rejected him and his mother.

Also in the movie the love triangle, which became fatal for Luis Mazzini, is beautifully played. Since childhood he has been in love with a neighbor girl, Sibylla, but she ridicules his marriage proposal and in return marries the rich Lionel, whom she can't stand. However, when Luis begins to climb the social ladder, Sibylla wants to marry him. But Mazzini plans to marry Edith, because of her more suitable social status for the future Duke's wife, and then Sibylla frames Luis by accusing him of murdering her husband Lionel, and ironically the protagonist is imprisoned for a murder he didn't even plan to commit....

But as mentioned above, all the obscenity of this movie is in the past, and now “Kind Hearts and Crowns” looks like a nice black comedy, primarily because of the wonderful acting of the actors. Dennis Price perfectly portrayed the calculating Louis Mazzini, and you can feel the sophistication of a scion of a ducal family in his every gesture. Alec Guinness also played the eight characters well, but still his work can't be compared to Peter Sellers' three characters in Dr. Strangelove. But that's only because each of Guinness's characters have a cameo, unlike the more expansive screen time of Sellers's characters.

To summarize, it is one of the best comedies of the “golden period” of Ealing Studios, along with “Skip to Pimlico”, “Ladykillers” and “The Man in the White Suit”. And this film is certainly worth watching as an undaunted classic comedy that hasn't lost its humor.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (89.6 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Info Audio

#English: FLAC 1.0 Unfiltered Mono
#English: FLAC 1.0 Filtered Mono
#German: LPCM Audio 2.0

Info Subtitles

English SDH, French, German, Spanish (Castilian).