Containing multitudes is a time-honored cinematic tradition.
Sure, featuring a single actor as more than one character in your movie smells a bit like a gimmick—but at the end of the day, it’s an efficient and often effective means of showcasing the versatility of a performer. And that can hardly be faulted. We caught a whiff of it with Split this year, though McAvoy might be disqualified for being a Legion of One rather than a cast with a shared face. Personally, I had no idea the trend cast such a wide-reaching historical net — I’d stupidly assumed it was something made possible by the advent of modern makeup and digital tech. Again, stupidly.
Be it gimmick or something more nuanced (or both!) — it’s particularly fascinating that it has such a long standing history as a marketing device. Film quality aside, the main draw is often the performative tour-de-force itself. Some...
Sure, featuring a single actor as more than one character in your movie smells a bit like a gimmick—but at the end of the day, it’s an efficient and often effective means of showcasing the versatility of a performer. And that can hardly be faulted. We caught a whiff of it with Split this year, though McAvoy might be disqualified for being a Legion of One rather than a cast with a shared face. Personally, I had no idea the trend cast such a wide-reaching historical net — I’d stupidly assumed it was something made possible by the advent of modern makeup and digital tech. Again, stupidly.
Be it gimmick or something more nuanced (or both!) — it’s particularly fascinating that it has such a long standing history as a marketing device. Film quality aside, the main draw is often the performative tour-de-force itself. Some...
- 4/13/2017
- by Meg Shields
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Call it A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder & Winning Big.
The musical comedy dominated the 59th Annual Drama Desk Awards, taking home a leading seven trophies at the gala held Sunday night at The Town Hall in New York City. Based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: the Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman, the farce was named outstanding musical and received the musical direction award for Darko Tresnjak.
Star Jefferson Mays won for outstanding actor in a musical, an honor he shared with Neil Patrick Harris for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Lauren Worsham was named outstanding featured actress in a musical.
The musical comedy dominated the 59th Annual Drama Desk Awards, taking home a leading seven trophies at the gala held Sunday night at The Town Hall in New York City. Based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: the Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman, the farce was named outstanding musical and received the musical direction award for Darko Tresnjak.
Star Jefferson Mays won for outstanding actor in a musical, an honor he shared with Neil Patrick Harris for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Lauren Worsham was named outstanding featured actress in a musical.
- 6/2/2014
- by Amber Ray
- EW.com - PopWatch
The tuner "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" came into the Tonys derby with a leading 10 nominations and looked liked a lock for Best Musical. Already, this musicalization of Roy Horniman's novel about an heir who dispatches the eight relatives standing in his way of a fortune has racked up wins with the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama League. -Break- Who do you think will take this top Tony Award? Join the fight over this going on right now in our forums However, in the past week, it has lost the support of many of our Experts and now has just a one-vote lead (8-7) over "Beautiful." That jukebox musical uses the classic songs of Carole King to tell her life story. Only one other musical that recycles pop songs has prevailed in this top race: "Jersey Boys" back in 2006. Those Experts now backing the bid by...
- 5/30/2014
- Gold Derby
The producers of the wickedly witty new musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” use the tiniest type possible to credit the source material: “based on a novel by Roy Horniman.” Cinephiles will know that Horniman’s “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal” is also the basis for the 1949 British film “Kind Hearts and Coronets” in which Alec Guinness famously plays the eight murdered victims of a distant relative who feels he deserves to be the Duke of D’Ascoyne. In “Gentleman’s Guide,” which opened Sunday at the Walter Kerr Theatre, the coveted title has been changed to the Earl of Highhurst,...
- 11/17/2013
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
While the source material credited for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder is Israel Rank, an Edwardian novel by Roy Horniman published in 1907, the show’s key inspiration lies in the film adapted from that book, Kind Hearts and Coronets. That wonderful 1949 Ealing Studios black comedy cast the incomparable Alec Guinness as eight English aristocrats standing in the way of a murderous commoner’s noble birthright. The virtuosic comic turn here belongs to Jefferson Mays, taking on dizzyingly quick changes of costume and characterization with hilarious aplomb. But that’s by no means the sole enticement of this toothsome new
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- 11/17/2013
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This is one of the finest comedies ever – and it's all thanks to the man who plays its well-bred villain
There are four great voiceovers in cinema: William Holden in Sunset Boulevard; Joanne Woodward in The Age of Innocence; Joan Fontaine in Letter from an Unknown Woman; and, to my mind the greatest of them all, Dennis Price in Kind Hearts and Coronets. It's utterly perfect; there isn't a flaw in it. The way Price delivers it is quite extraordinary. The truth is, without Dennis Price there wouldn't be a film. He holds it all together with the most elegant diction. It's quite wonderful, even just to listen to.
The starting point of Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1907 novel called Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman. It was originally a somewhat laboured Edwardian satire on antisemitism; I tried to read it, and frankly it's impossible to get through. Robert Hamer,...
There are four great voiceovers in cinema: William Holden in Sunset Boulevard; Joanne Woodward in The Age of Innocence; Joan Fontaine in Letter from an Unknown Woman; and, to my mind the greatest of them all, Dennis Price in Kind Hearts and Coronets. It's utterly perfect; there isn't a flaw in it. The way Price delivers it is quite extraordinary. The truth is, without Dennis Price there wouldn't be a film. He holds it all together with the most elegant diction. It's quite wonderful, even just to listen to.
The starting point of Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1907 novel called Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman. It was originally a somewhat laboured Edwardian satire on antisemitism; I tried to read it, and frankly it's impossible to get through. Robert Hamer,...
- 9/14/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Re-released into the nation’s cinemas last Friday Kind Hearts and Coronets is perhaps the most famous of Ealing’s celebrated comedies, detailing the retribution and enforced inheritance of a Dukedom via the macabre fate of the various ill-natured and intemperate members of the D’Ascoyne family.
It’s a beautifully pitched comedy of terrors, leading us through an increasingly dark labyrinth of revenge, double crossing love matches and murder in the most polite fashion.
Dennis Price leads us as the outcast Louis Mazzini, who seeks to avenge his Mother’s rebuff from her rich family but pruning the family tree to allow for his succession to the position of Duke of Chalfont. Stir into the mix a childhood sweetheart spurning the poor Louis’ proposal in favour of a ridiculous, but rich, man and the universe conspires for the diabolical plan to unfold.
Every time I watch this film I...
It’s a beautifully pitched comedy of terrors, leading us through an increasingly dark labyrinth of revenge, double crossing love matches and murder in the most polite fashion.
Dennis Price leads us as the outcast Louis Mazzini, who seeks to avenge his Mother’s rebuff from her rich family but pruning the family tree to allow for his succession to the position of Duke of Chalfont. Stir into the mix a childhood sweetheart spurning the poor Louis’ proposal in favour of a ridiculous, but rich, man and the universe conspires for the diabolical plan to unfold.
Every time I watch this film I...
- 8/22/2011
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The Ealing genre reached utter perfection with this superb black comedy of manners about the most elegant serial killer in history
The Ealing genre reached utter perfection with this superb black comedy of manners, made in 1949, directed by Robert Hamer and adapted by Hamer with accomplished farceur John Dighton from the 1907 novel Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman. Dennis Price gave a performance which he was, sadly, never again to equal as Louis Mazzini, the suburban draper's assistant who becomes the most elegant serial killer in history. Finding himself by a quirk of fate distantly in line to a dukedom, and infuriated by this aristocratic family's cruel treatment of his mother, he sets out to murder everyone ahead of him in line to the ermine. Alec Guinness gives a miraculously subtle and differentiated multi-performance as all eight members of the noble clan. Joan Greenwood is in her element as the honey-voiced siren Sibella,...
The Ealing genre reached utter perfection with this superb black comedy of manners, made in 1949, directed by Robert Hamer and adapted by Hamer with accomplished farceur John Dighton from the 1907 novel Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman. Dennis Price gave a performance which he was, sadly, never again to equal as Louis Mazzini, the suburban draper's assistant who becomes the most elegant serial killer in history. Finding himself by a quirk of fate distantly in line to a dukedom, and infuriated by this aristocratic family's cruel treatment of his mother, he sets out to murder everyone ahead of him in line to the ermine. Alec Guinness gives a miraculously subtle and differentiated multi-performance as all eight members of the noble clan. Joan Greenwood is in her element as the honey-voiced siren Sibella,...
- 8/18/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The 60th anniversary of Robert Hamer's Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets is the perfect time to get acquainted with the witty, provocative book on which it is based
This week, I spoke at the Film Nite discussion group in London on the 60th anniversary of Robert Hamer's Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets. It was a chance to revisit that old chestnut: is it true that you can only make great films from terrible books, and that conversely, great books always get turned into terrible films?
Kind Hearts and Coronets is the elegant black comedy about a suburban draper's assistant, Louis Mazzini, played by Dennis Price, who by a quirk of fate is distantly in line to a dukedom and sets out to murder every single nobleman and noblewoman ahead of him in the succession so that he can get his hands on the ermine. All the...
This week, I spoke at the Film Nite discussion group in London on the 60th anniversary of Robert Hamer's Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets. It was a chance to revisit that old chestnut: is it true that you can only make great films from terrible books, and that conversely, great books always get turned into terrible films?
Kind Hearts and Coronets is the elegant black comedy about a suburban draper's assistant, Louis Mazzini, played by Dennis Price, who by a quirk of fate is distantly in line to a dukedom and sets out to murder every single nobleman and noblewoman ahead of him in the succession so that he can get his hands on the ermine. All the...
- 11/12/2009
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
I'm a big fan of French filmmaker François Ozon (http://www.francois-ozon.com/). It started when I saw his movie Melvil Poupaud (http://themovie-fanatic.com/spotlights/stars/melvil_poupaud/). After that, I began to search for his other films (Swimming Pool, 5x2, Criminal Lovers and Under The Sand, among others) and I had the most exciting times watching them. His movies are never predictable, never the same. One of his latest is Angel (http://www.francois-ozon.com/english/bio-filmo/ozon-movies.html). I'll post my review of the film via the tMF French Films Blog-a-Thon! very soon! Searching @google for Ozon's Angel , [ see the trailer after the jump ] I chanced upon this article from the Guardian, and it says a lot about the book and its transformation into the big screen. Says Peter Bradshaw (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/08/will_ozons_angel_fly.html): Who could film such a book? My own feeling is that,...
- 8/21/2008
- The Movie Fanatic
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