June 14, 1950
Ealing
Comedy, Historical
VHS
B
This first of my British movies wouldn't have gotten past the Code had it been made in the US at the time, involving as it does adultery and serial killing.* There's no explicit sex or violence though, and the movie is, to use phrasing the antihero (Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini) would approve, delicately indelicate. It's a very dry, dark, subtle comedy, and it's not surprising to learn it's based on a book (Israel Rank). Alec Guinness plays eight (or more, depending on what you count) members of the aristocratic family that Mazzini's mother has been disowned by, so Mazzini swears revenge on them. Along the way, he marries his cousin's widow, but continues his affair with Sibella, played by the luscious Joan Greenwood, who'd be more scrupulous but just as sexy as Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Besides Greenwood, a couple of the faces might look familiar if you've seen Being Earnest: Miles Malleson (hangman, Chasuble) and Richard Wattis (defence counsel, Seton)
*Wikipedia says that on American release, the discovery of Louis's memoirs was added, and the N-word (in the "eeny meeny miney mo" rhyme, true to turn-of-the-century England) subtracted. Also, "the dialogue between Louis and Sibella was altered to downplay their adultery; [and] derogatory lines about the Reverend were deleted." Apparently US censors were fine with the murders, as long as Mazzini seemed to be punished in the end.
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