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The Ladykillers
- favourite film

Like Kind Hearts and Coronets which preceded it on the Ealing conveyor belt of classic comedies , The Ladykillers has a dark heart. The story concerns a disparate bunch of robbers brought together by second division mastermind Professor Marcus, played by Alec Guinness . At once heist flick, almost slapstick comedy, and morality tale, The Ladykillers contains four murders and another accidental death, but still manages to provide the obligatory happy ending – unless you look at it from the gangsters’ point of view. Though there is plenty of tension and surprise, the audience never truly expects sweet Mrs Wilberforce to cop it: the eccentric old lady who provides the gang with their rented base seems protected by providence, the nefarious action choreographed around her.
Director Alexander Mackendrick knew talent when he saw it, the cast a mix of old-stagers and newcomers: Guinness had worked for him on The Man in the White Suit four years earlier in 1951, as had Cecil Parker; Peter Sellers , established in the Goon Show, was a relative movie novice; and Jack Warner playing a police superintendent was a veteran about to begin his 21-year stint as Dixon of Dock Green, where he would suffer demotion to sergeant. And don’t blink or you’ll miss Frankie Howerd , Kenneth Connor and Stratford Johns getting early breaks in the movie business.

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