The Ladykillers

Starring: Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Katie Johnson, Cecil Parker, Frankie Howerd

Synopsis:

In an old cul-de-sac overlooking St Pancras Station lives elderly do-gooder, Mrs Wilberforce, with her three parrots. One afternoon, a kindly gentleman called Professor Marcus enquires about the rooms she has for rent. He tells her that he is part of an amateur string quartet and that they are looking for somewhere to practice. In actual fact, Professor Marcus is a criminal mastermind who is hatching a devilish plot to rob an armoured car with his fellow “musicians”. An unwitting pawn in their plans, Mrs Wilberforce nevertheless becomes a fly in their ointment and the gang come to the conclusion that she needs to be killed…but which of them has the guts to kill a sweet old lady?

The Ladykillers is widely revered as one of the classic comedies to come out of Britain’s long-gone Ealing studios, but I have to confess that up until now I had never seen it. Thankfully, Studio Canal’s upcoming blu-ray edition gave me the perfect opportunity.

Made in 1956 and shot in early technicolour, The Ladykillers is a much darker film than many might suppose, and it is clear to see what drew the Coen Brothers to the work when they decided to remake it in 2004.

Katie Johnson plays the elderly Mrs Wilberforce, widowed for the past 25 years and living alone with her 3 parrots. She is portrayed as a very prim and proper woman who demands that manners are observed at all times. She is also a bit of a busybody and botherer of the police. If this was a modern film she would be reprimanded for wasting police time. But she also has a cast-iron resolve that many people (our crooks included) can’t resist. She reminds me a lot of the old lady in the Tweetie and Sylvester cartoons.

Into her life comes Professor Marcus, played to brilliant effect by Alec Guinness. We first become aware of his presence as a shadowy figure lurking outside the front and back of Mrs Wilberforce’s house, before presenting himself at the front door. Professor Marcus is a twitchy fellow with an exaggerated over-bite and permanent smile pasted on his face. His skin is pale and his eyes slightly sunken, while his clothes are rather threadbare (especially a jumper he wears late on).

For the caper he has planned, Marcus brings together a team of four crooks who have never worked together before, but are all necessary for the plan to work. Peter Sellers plays local wide-boy Harry, Cecil Parker is Claude, a con-man. The muscle is provided by One-Round (coz no one lasts more than one round with him in the ring), played by Danny Green, while Herbert Lom is the “professional gangster”, Louis.

Other than Guinness, Lom is the stand-out for me. I’d only really been familiar with his later work (such as Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies). He gets a great introduction, standing in Mrs Wilberforce’s porch, his face obscured by shadow. More so than the other three crooks, Louis is a deadly man capable of nasty deeds.

Professor Marcus is a master manipulator. When Louis (Herbert Lom) casts doubt on the involvement of Mrs Wilberforce, Marcus manipulates the way the group cast their votes, deliberately leaving One-Round til last, knowing that Louis would resent the big man from having the casting vote and that One-Round would vote in his favour, purely out of spite. There is another classic shot which shows Marcus in the foreground, in close-up, while his four co-horts bicker behind him. The look on Marcus’s face leaves you in no doubt that the in-fighting is part of his plan and that he intends to pit them against each other anyway.

The caper itself is quite straightforward. Marcus marks the time of the arrival of both the armoured car and the arrival of a train from Cambridge. Once they have stolen the money, they hide it in a chest which they make to look like its just arrived on the train. While the police search for a case of money being shipped out of town, Mrs Wilberforce is sent to pick up the chest and bring it back to the lodging house. Marcus had considered everything except the actions of Mrs Wilberforce herself, who first returns to the scene of the crime (jangling the nerves of the crooks) because she left her umbrella (again) and then getting into an argument with a barrow boy (the late, great Frankie Howerd) who was trying to stop a horse from helping himself to all his apples.

Once Mrs Wilberforce sees the money and reads of the crime, she puts two and two together and expects the gang to turn themselves in. However, over the course of an evening the group conspire to kill her, drawing short straws to see who will do the deed. This is where the film ramps up the farce as the crooks start to turn in on each other, rather than try to kill a sweet old lady. It also brings about a novel way of disposing of bodies which will be forever lost to the age of steam trains!

Studio Canal are currently releasing a series of remastered classics (via Optimum Releasing in the UK) but this is the only one of the current batch I felt comfortable reviewing for Flash-bang. However it is a shining example of the sterling work being done to remaster these classic films. It actually struck me most during the final shot, as Mrs Wilberforce walks along the high street. The picture quality is so good it’s almost as if she’s walking out of the screen. Cineastes will be pleased with the amount of supplements included in the blu-ray, including commentaries and interviews.

Verdict:

A dark comedy indeed, with a great mix of visual storytelling, characterisation, farce and situation comedy, The Ladykillers is one of the true classics.

9 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)