Ladykillers

A comedy from another place and another time, that right now seems so long ago and far away, "The Ladykillers," directed by Alexander Mackendrick, stars Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, and stands as a perfect example of how charming, delightful, civilized and yes, "funny," a film can be when approached with intelligence and respect for the audience. Guinness plays Professor Marcus, who puts together a gang to pull off the "perfect" robbery he has concocted. But, as it always is with all things "perfect," it quickly goes awry for the gang, thanks to the involvement of an old lady (Katie Johnson), in whose house Marcus has taken rooms. And as the situation in which the gang finds themselves escalates as they try to put things to rights, the audience is treated to an exemplary piece of truly humorous and memorable cinema. Guinness anchors the farce with a superb characterization (even to altering his appearance with false teeth) of the Professor. It's a prime example of just how great a character actor Guinness was; as in all of his films, he creates a total character of Marcus, inside and out, beginning with the attitude and right on down to the smallest details that many actors would deem insignificant. There is a studied consistency he maintains throughout the film that would stand up to the closest scrutiny; it is not by accident that he is considered by many to be one of greatest actors of our times. And how great to see the youthful Peter Sellers in one of his earliest roles. Watch closely and you can see traces of the unique mannerisms that would mark his career; the slight hesitations, the inward, subtle consideration of the status quo and the sense he conveys in a split second that Murphy's Law is about to go into effect. He makes Harry, a member of the hapless gang, a memorable character. Herbert Lom (as Louis, in this precursor to his pairing with Sellers some twenty years later in the "Pink Panther" movies), Parker (Major Courtney) and Danny Green (One-Round) round out the gang, the likes of which you have never seen before, nor in all probability will ever see again, because-as the saying goes-they just don't make `em like this any more. The supporting cast includes Jack Warner (The Superintendent), Philip Stainton (Sergeant), Kenneth Connor (Cab Driver) and Ewan Roberts (Constable). Clever and sophisticated, "The Ladykillers" is a testimony to just how grand and uplifting comedy can be, without resorting to the gross and often unpalatable "humor" upon which so many of today's contemporary comedies seem to depend. Not to say that today's comedies are no good; it's just that they so often lack the esteem and the "humanity"-not to mention the longevity-which lends itself to a film such as this one. Movies like this will be around long after most of the addle-brained Saturday Night Live induced fare is gone and forgotten. With the added bonus of having Guinness and Sellers together, this is a true classic in every sense of the word. This is what the magic of the movies is really all about.

"The Ladykillers" is regarded as the last of the great Ealing comedies and another macabre black comedy in the style of "Kind Hearts and Coronets." However, I had picked up the film because it had both Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers and was therefore rather surprised that the one doing all the scene stealing is Katie Johnson as Mrs. Wilberforce, a sweet little old lady who makes it a daily practice to go round to the local constable's station each day to keep them apprised on what is happening in the neighborhood. Guinness plays Professor Marcus, a criminal mastermind who plans on duping Mrs. Wilberforce into being an unwitting member of his gang, who are going to rob a armored car. As a cover, he tells the old lady that they are a string quartet, and they play the same record over and over again while they develop their scheme. When Mrs. Wilberforce repeatedly arrives to offer tea, coffee, or any other comfort that comes to mind, the criminals all stand around uncomfortably holding their instruments and try to make small talk.

The gang has all of your standard criminal types. Danny Green is the gentle giant, One-Round (a.k.a. Mr. Lawson), Cecily Parker is the old army chap Claude (a.k.a. Major Courtney), Herbert Lom is the cold-hearted killer Louis (a.k.a. Mr. Harvey), and Sellers is the young rouge Harry (a.k.a. Mr. Robinson). However, the ironic point of this 1955 black comedy is that together they are no match for Mrs. Wilberforce. The heist goes off without a hitch, that is to say until Mrs. Wilberforce plays her unwitting role in the proceedings. What follows is like the old Chinese finger torture, where the more things work for the gang the worst off they get as the little old lady thwarts their plans without even trying. Eventually even Mrs. Wilberforce is able to add up things enough to become a liability. Then the criminals make the biggest mistake of all: they draw lots to see who has to do the old lady in. The idea that Guinness, Sellars, and the rest of the gang could be reduced to minor roles by a little old lady is astounding, but that is the precise irony that makes "The Ladykillers" a classic.

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Years ago, before the networks realized there was a late night culture that could be exploited with mindless extreme sports and shopping channels, you could find classic British films like this one on TV in the wee hours. This film is a must-see for Anglophiles, along with School For Scoundrels, Whisky Galore, and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Star Wars fans should see this, if only to understand why Alec Guinness was able to become Obi Wan so effortlessly, his skill as an actor was already finely honed at the time of this great film. And today's film writers should study it to gain an insight into the proper way to put a real twist on the end of a film.

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I recently purchased The Horse's Mouth (1958) from Amazon as well as "The Alec Guinness Collection" which includes The Ladykillers (1955) plus four others: The Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), and The Captain's Paradise (1953). Frankly, I was amazed how well each of the six films has held up since I first saw it.

For me, the most memorable performance in this film is provided by Katie Johnson as Mrs. Louisa Alexandra Wilberforce who rents a flat to Professor Marcus (Guinness) and his companions. The plot such as it is involves their theft of 60,000 pounds and subsequent efforts to remove it from a locker they have rented to store it temporarily. For about half of this film, brilliantly directed by Alexander Mackendrick (who also directed Guinness in The Man in the White Suit, 1951), Mrs. Wilberforce believes that Marcus and his friends are honest citizens and amateur musicians. When she learns that they are thieves, her first concern is not for her personal safety (which is never in doubt, anyway) but to return "the lolly" to its rightful owners. Complications include her elderly friends who appreciatively swarm around the Marcus group during a hilarious afternoon tea party. One development of special interest to me is the fact that, except for the psychopath Louis Harvey (Lom), the thieves do not want Mrs. Wilberforce harmed in any way and begin to feel protective toward her. This proves to be significant as the plot proceeds gracefully to a conclusion I did not anticipate.

Given the number of deaths which occur in this film, it seems inappropriate to describe it as "charming" and "delightful" but it is nonetheless. For that, I give most of the credit to the performance by Katie Johnson under Mackendrick's direction and with the strong support of Guinness who obviously defers to her prominence in so many important scenes. The supporting cast is first-rate. Yes, that really is a very young Peter Sellers in the role of Harry Robinson who is given relatively little to say and do. Danny Green is excellent as One Round, providing the muscle needed to complete the plan devised by the group's brain, Marcus.

For these and other reasons, this is my favorite among the five films in "The Alec Guinness Collection."

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Ladykillers occupies a quirky cinematic space halfway between Mary Poppins and Psycho, a delight from the golden age of Ealing Studios which will remind you of the Sgt.-Pepper-charms of British eccentricity. But this is a movie with a dark, ironic energy which might well have influenced Stanley Kubrick's directorial style, too. The dark, 1955 comedy was directed by Alexander MacKendrick, beautifully restored and released on Blu-ray by Studio Canal.

A talkative spinster-widow named Mrs. Wilburforce -who nobody takes seriously, most especially the police -takes on a lodger, a certain "Professor" Marcus, in her rickety old house perched over a smoky London railway yard. Played by Alec Guinness with artificial teeth and all the charm and composure of a child molester, Marcus is actually a criminal mastermind planning a robbery upon a London armored car. Marcus and his four partners in crime plan and execute the robbery using the rented quarters in Mrs. Wilburforce's house as a base of operations, concealing their covert discussions under the awkward guise of, of all things, pretending to be a string quartet.

While the string-quartet shtick of non-musicians is a five-star stroke of genius, the core humor in the story is generated in the funny tension between the unsuspecting and long-winded Mrs. Wilburforce, and the small, eccentric gang of bumbling criminals who would like very much to get on with their work without her annoying interruptions. When their crime is discovered, the gang are subdued not by force but by the shame and guilt rained down upon them with deadly avuncularity by the good Mrs. Wilburforce and her coffee klatch of elderly spinsters.

Ealing studios is legendary for it's stylish black and white comedies from the 1950's, but Ladykillers represented a departure from this norm, as it was shot in three strip Technicolor. This was a rather special and cumbersome technology that required a huge camera running three strips of film through it at the same time, but the color fidelity and resolution of I.B. Technicolor is nearly unimpeachable. Not only does having a discrete red, green and blue film record make Technicolor ideal for archival purposes, but the fact that the grain is distributed between three color separations should, in theory, make the quality superior to even the most modern color films. Certainly the idea of taking RGB emulsions direct to digital should yield amazing color fidelity.

On the other hand, each film layer also has the potential to pick up dust and damage. But the Ladykillers was very fortunate in it's time to have been shot on the new safety film, which also had superior archival properties. Thus, Ladykillers represented for Studio Canal an almost ideal candidate for digital restoral. The Blu-ray includes an eye-popping special feature which vividly illustrates in A/B split screen style before and after images of the restoration.

But I digress. Let me simply say that the Blu-Ray of Ladykillers is phenomenal on the digital screen -assuredly a far superior visual experience to the version originally released in theaters. The colors are so rich yet subtle, and the London and Ealing studio locations so charming, Ladykillers is almost like a Mary Poppins story gone wrong, as if Walt Disney took a wrong turn on his Fantasyland train tracks.

The jaw-dropping (in this case, literally jaw-dropping) range of characters that Alec Guinness was able to conjure onto the screen over his varied career is nothing short of astonishing, and in Professor Marcus, Guinness created yet another totally unique gothic character. At one point, as Marcus is about to explode with destructive anger, Guinness even takes on a Hitchcockian profile -but his rage is checked just in time by Mrs. Wilburforce. After all, it would be improper to act uncivilized in front of a lady.

Rounding out the wonderful cast of miscreants are the demure and proper Cecil Parker, Peter Sellers in one of his earliest roles (compared to Sellers' later work, very tame), Herbert Lom as an aggressive gangster-type, and the massive Danny Green as the small-brained "One-Round", the "muscle" of the outfit.

The string quartet motif drives much of the score, with a wealth of appropriately heavy-handed, sinister background music further supplied by the most able Tristram Cary, interwoven with train sound effects which penetrate the old house incessantly, also cued by the composer at exactly the right moments to insinuate danger or to help with the next scene transition.

I suppose one could even suggest that the multiple train tracks in the rail yard are a metaphor for the 3 strips of technicolor film running through the camera. Train tracks have long been recognized as an allegory for movie film. And in the end, our five, pathetic villains drop themselves onto the technicolor train tracks and thus are immortalized for posterity on the emulsion itself.

On a technical note, this film has much less foley and effects than we would accept as normal today, with sound effects coverage rather thin at times on the outdoor locations, where of course dialogue would be dubbed heavily. Where there were sound effects, they were often heavy and grating. Such are the contraints of optical film sound. Driving in cars in the streets of London, in the interiors of vehicles for example, there was no discernible automobile engine sound -or much of anything else -at times.

The house interior set is brilliantly crooked by design, the lighting and camera movement are very controlled, often exaggerating the contrasts between light and dark, and I give tremendous credit to cinematographer Otto Heller for his many dolly shots and other unusual set ups with such a massive camera. The surrealness of the imagery and characterizations give the film an hallucinatory, experimental, yet meticulous quality, which reminds one of Kubrick's best work.

But more than anything else, The Ladykillers is a study in how gothic comedy -which normally is best executed in Black and White -can be rendered in color with great success. It represents an important milestone in the transition between B&W and Color cinematography. I highly recommend the special features on this Blu-ray as well, especially the accompanying commentary by Philip Kemp.

Tragically, it seems this was Ealing's last great film, as the studio was thereafter purchased by the BBC, and was soon producing television shows.

While it does have it's imperfect moments, Ladykillers is destined to become a cult classic, if it isn't already, and will far outlast it's modern reincarnation.

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