Kind Hearts and Coronets (Film 1949)

Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British crime black comedy film. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays nine characters. The plot is loosely based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907) by Roy Horniman. It concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After her death, Louis decides to take revenge on the family and take the dukedom by murdering the eight people ahead of him in the line of succession to the title.

Production began on 1 September 1948. Exterior filming was undertaken in the Kent villages of Harrietsham and Boughton Monchelsea. Leeds Castle, also in Kent, was used for Chalfont, the family home of the D'Ascoynes. Additional filming was undertaken at Ealing Studios.

Cast & Characters:
1. Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini and his father
2. Alec Guinness as nine members of the D'Ascoyne family:
- Ethelred, 8th Duke of Chalfont
- Ethelred's four younger brothers:
- The Reverend Lord Henry
- General Lord Rufus
- Admiral Lord Horatio
- Lord Ascoyne, Banker

Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne, Ethelred's sister
Ethelred's nephews:
- Young Ascoyne
- Young Henry

- The seventh duke, Ethelred's father, in brief flashback sequences

3. Valerie Hobson as Edith
4. Joan Greenwood as Sibella
5. Audrey Fildes as Mama
6. Miles Malleson as the hangman
7. Clive Morton as the prison governor
8. John Penrose as Lionel
9. Cecil Ramage as the crown counsel
10. Hugh Griffith as the Lord High Steward, who presides over Louis's trial
11. John Salew as Mr Perkins
12. Eric Messiter as Inspector Burgoyne of Scotland Yard
13. Lyn Evans as the farmer
14. Barbara Leake as the schoolmistress
15. Peggy Ann Clifford as Maud Redpole
16. Anne Valery as the Girl in the punt
17. Arthur Lowe as the Tit-Bits reporter
19. Laurence Naismith Warder in Jail (uncredited)
20. Jeremy Spenser as Louis as a child (uncredited)