DVD REVIEW | Serena Donadoni | This wickedly funny black comedy — imagine if Alfred Hitchcock had directed Arsenic and Old Lace — is superbly showcased on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment as part of their Alec Guinness Collection. Looking at the great comedies Guinness made for England's Ealing Studios — Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and The Ladykillers (1955) — two things become crystal clear. The first is that Guinness was his generation's Lon Chaney, a man of a thousand faces who so effectively melts into a role that he becomes invisible as an actor. (A performance style embraced by Guinness's Ladykillers co-star Peter Sellers, and later by producer Michael Balcon's grandson, Daniel Day-Lewis.) The second is that, beyond the superb performances, these films serve as templates for clever cinema comedy. Deftly blending social satire with clockwork capers, the Ealing Studios masterminds created a kind of smart slapstick, a fusion of intelligence and silliness that would serve as a blueprint for distinctively British humor. The extras may be sparse in this collection (each DVD includes a theatrical trailer and the same detailed Guinness biography), but the presentation is stunning. Anchor Bay is known for their eclectic output — classics, horror, art house, cult and children's films — but as aficionados know, the sound and picture quality of their DVDs is consistently high, as good (if not better) than other DVDs which tout their pristine digital transfers. Even in this impressive set, The Ladykillers is a standout. While the other Ealing comedies were made in crisp black and white, this film is in glorious, vivid Technicolor, and Anchor Bay's DVD is as remarkable as the recently remastered Singin' in the Rain (1952) and the restored Niagara (1953). As in those films, the use of color enhances the essential nature of the story, which in The Ladykillers, is both mundane and profoundly diabolical. Technicolor, with its painterly hues, signals that this is life, only more so. Just as Katie Johnson's doddering Mrs. Wilberforce is a typical English widow, only more so. The Victorian era clings to her and her overstuffed house, and she seems such an easy mark for the reptilian Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness) and the fellow members of his "string quintet" (Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers and Danny Green). This criminal crew has come together for a big heist, and they target Mrs. Wilberforce because of her seemingly helpless nature and her home's proximity to the railroad station. Trains, with their predictability and automated efficiency, will factor into their fate in unexpected ways, but it's the fragile old lady who will be their downfall. Mrs. Wilberforce is unexpectedly — and deliciously — a force to be reckoned with. Director Alexander Mackendrick, who also made The Man in the White Suit, a scathing look at the wages of progress in England's textile industry, and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), a still-potent portrayal of America's corrosive fame machine, fashioned The Ladykillers as a marvel of chaotic precision. Mackendrick obviously knew the value of both, and the comedy arises from the tension — the exquisite friction — between order and anarchy. So it makes perfect sense that Joel and Ethan Coen chose The Ladykillers for their first actual remake. The Coens are astute students of cinema, and they've created a fascinating body of work by reinterpreting film genres with a distinctive mix of respectful reverence and cheeky insouciance. They're deconstructionists who still believe in the power of potent storytelling, so that the film noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) or screwball comedy The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) are precise reconstructions of genre conventions with a modern twist. The Ladykillers is ideal Coen brothers fare, a storyline rife with deception and abrupt reversals of fortune. (One key difference between the filmmakers is that Mackendrick infused his best comedies with astute social commentary, while the Coens are more irreverent brainiacs than true believers.) Whatever the fate of the Coens' [2004] remake, their embrace of The Ladykillers should bring well-deserved attention to the original, as well as to the other great Ealing Studios comedies. Anchor Bay is releasing these films as individual DVDs, but they can also be purchased in a box set. The Alec Guinness Collection comes with a fifth DVD (not available separately), the racy 1953 comedy, The Captain's Paradise. This non-Ealing film features Guinness as a bigamist ship's captain who believes he's found the best of both worlds: a British homebody wife and a sassy Latin spouse (Yvonne DeCarlo) who live in different ports. Each DVD in the Alec Guinness Collection is produced with Anchor Bay's usual attention to detail, right down to the menu graphics. On The Ladykillers, the menu features framed portraits of the characters, each one perpetually askew, mimicking the way no picture can remain level in the off-kilter home of Mrs. Wilberforce. This in-joke captures the very specific flavor of this film: a glass of sweet old port with a dash of bitters. With this terrific DVD, you can almost taste it.
© 2004, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.
THE LADYKILLERS | 1955
Director: Alexander Mackendrick | Writer: William Rose | Cinematography: Otto Heller | Music: Tristram Cary | Art Direction: Anthony Mendleson | Costume Design: Jim Morahan | Editing: Jack Harris | Producer: Michael Balcon | Released by Ealing Studios (theatrical), Anchor Bay Entertainment (DVD in 2002) and Studio Canal & Lions Gate (blu-ray and DVD in 2010) | Running time: 91 minutes
Cast: Alec Guinness (Professor Marcus), Katie Johnson (Mrs. Wilberforce), Cecil Parker (Major Courtney), Herbert Lom (Mr. Harvey), Danny Green (Mr. Lawson), Peter Sellers (Mr. Robinson), Jack Warner (The Superintendent), and Frankie Howerd (The Barrow Boy).
