A class can be taught comparing British and American manners using only Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Family Jewels, two films that are honest to the culture and time from which they originate. Jerry Lewis’s 1965 film could be read as a reverse remake of Robert Hamer’s 1949 Ealing Studios comedy. Lewis plays seven roles in The Family Jewels, six uncles and one chauffer to a little rich girl who seeks a new “father” to share her $30 million fortune, while in Kind Hearts and Coronets, the great Alec Guinness plays eight relatives that come under attack by a distant relation denied his rightful place within their family. Both films are concerned with the nature of privilege, and the means by which the characters in these films attempt to preserve and attain status mirrors the nature of British and American modes of behavior. One film explodes in the same way the other implodes.
Like its aesthetic, The Family Jewels’s performances are loud, brash, and colorful. Kind Hearts and Coronets, by comparison, exudes an extraordinary feeling of reserve; its absence of color suggests a vulgar policy of exclusion. Quite possibly the darkest of the Ealing Studios comedies, it isn’t very funny—even by the stiff-upper-lip standards of the Brits, the humor is so dry and nonchalant as to appear nonexistent—but Hamer’s gift for character observation is generous and insightful, which he cleverly echoes in the fiber of the film’s early scenes.
Often restricting action and light to the center of the screen (in one scene, the curvature of a tree limb provides the frame of the picture with an iris-like border), Hamer reflects Louis Mazzini’s (Dennis Price) outrage and exclusion using his constricting camera. Valerie Hobson’s Edith D’Ascoyne, widow of one of Louis’s victims, is neutered by her husband’s death in the same one-dimensional way as the woman with the funny hat from Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady, and while Louis’s girlfriend, Sibella Holland (Joan Greenwood), suggests another wet-noodle type, Hamer unleashes the character’s wit and cunning after an interesting twist of events, giving Louis a nemesis he can tango with on equal footing. This respect and understanding for the role of the female, her suffocation, and her desire and potential for outrage within British society exposes the depth of Hamer’s kind heart and mind.
Image/Sound
Kino’s transfer is uneven: the blown-out whites of some exterior shots sacrifice facial and background details; debris and damage is visible in a number of shots; and sharpness is inconsistent, as some sequences evince the crisp look of a new restoration while others possess an ever-slight haziness. On the other hand, contrast is impeccable, with a wide range of grays and deep blacks bringing a richness to the film’s elaborate costumes. And the sound is well-balanced, presenting the dialogue with all the clarity worthy of its rapier wit.
Extras
Film historian Kat Ellinger provides a droll and breezy audio commentary that manages to cover a lot of ground without ever feeling like an information dump. Of particular interest is her discussion of the rise of Ealing comedies in the aftermath of World War II, thanks in large part to studio head Michael Balcon, and their critical role in setting the template for British comedies over the next several decades. In her assessment of Kind Hearts and Coronets, she stresses the huge role that director Robert Hamer played in infusing gallows humor and dark sexual undertones into the film, helping to revive the popularity of witty, subversive satires akin to those of Oscar Wilde in the previous century. Ellinger also carves out time to get into the tragic personal lives of Hamer and actor Dennis Price and draws some intriguing parallels between American noir and British gothic films of the 1940s. Unfortunately, the remaining extras are far less astute. An episode of Those British Faces, featuring Dennis Price, primarily surveys the actor’s career through clips from his films, while an audio-only interview with cinematographer Douglas Slocombe is so poorly recorded that you have to strain to understand him as he dryly recounts his working as a freelance photographer and eventually moving into cinema. The disc’s extras are rounded out with an introduction by John Landis, a theatrical trailer, and the alternate American ending of the film.
Overall
Kino’s Blu-ray release comes furnished with an engaging and astute audio commentary that attests to the enduring appeal of the film’s deliciously morbid humor.
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