Jan 19 movie: Kinds Hearts and Coronets. According to Robert Osborne this is the movie that made Alec Guinness a star. The funny thing is, he isn't even the star of the movie. He just steals every scene he's in.
Guinness plays eight members of the noble D'Ascoyne family who are eliminated so that angry young Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), son of a lowly branch, can inherit the dukedom. (Actually Price offs six of them: one dies of natural causes and one goes down with his ship.) It sounds gruesome but it's extremely funny, especially with Price's detached, self-serving narration throughout.
Guinness's ability to play all eight of the D'ascoynes is amazing. He really looks like eight different people. Some of it is makeup, but mainly it's acting. They do use special effects once, in a scene where all the family members are seated together in a church.
TCM also showed The Ladykillers, but I didn't record it because I had already seen it.
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