Kind Hearts and Coronets (Adel verpflichtet)
Of course I knew Alec Guinness before, oh pardon, Sir Alec Guinness. But I never watched any of his movies, neither have I actually paid any attention to him considering that he is one of those actors who rarely participated in any film that related to any of the other people (directors or actors) of my interest, except Star Wars maybe. XD I have the impression that the greatest selling point of all Alec Guinness films are Alec Guinness himself. At least „Kind Hearts and Coronets“ is a brilliant example showing what a great actor and comedian he is.
The story of „Kind Hearts and Coronets“ itself is very, very british, in my opinion. From the very beginning, you get to know that our protagonist, a baron, is convicted for murder and right before he is going to get executed, he writes down his memoirs, in which he starts as a poor cast-away boy whose mother was a baroness. Due to rather unfortunate circumstances in his life, he decides to kill all his relatives in front of him in the heritage line. Successfully, as we will see, but that is not the point. Of course the greatness of the film is the path, not the destination: How he slowly befriends his victims, how they die one after another in the most hilarious way, how he courts his cousin’s wife… All the little details in the execution make this film so incredibly british and utterly funny. If on a scale of funniness internet memes are 1 and „One, Two, Three“ is 10, then „Kind Hearts and Coronets“ most likely reaches a 9 (and „Some like it Hot“ is a 9.5 XD).
It was totally a coincidence that made me watch this film, and how glad I am that I did. I have the impression that I have not seen enough really good comedies, and so „Kind Hearts and Coronets“ is an outstanding one. If you happen to like a good, british comedy, you will most likely enjoy this film as well. (Ja, in Bavaria, wo die Bäume aus Holz sind!)
Hehe.