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''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' is a British black comedy film of 1949 starring Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, and Valerie Hobson. Famously Guinness plays eight members of the D'Ascoyne family. The plot is loosely based on the novel ''Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal'' (1907) by Roy Horniman, with the screenplay written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton and the film directed by Hamer. The film's title derives from Tennyson's poem ''Lady Clara Vere de Vere'': "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."〔.〕 ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' is listed in ''Time'' magazine's top 100〔.〕 and also in the BFI Top 100 British films.〔.〕 In 2011 the film was digitally restored and re-released in selected British cinemas.〔.〕 ==Plot== In Edwardian England, Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini (Dennis Price) awaits his hanging the next morning. A flashback of the events leading to his sentence ensues, narrated by Louis as he writes his memoirs. After his mother, a daughter of the seventh Duke of Chalfont, elopes with an Italian opera singer named Mazzini (also played by Price), she is disowned by the aristocratic D'Ascoyne family for marrying beneath her social class. The couple are poor but happy, until Mazzini dies upon seeing Louis, his newborn son, for the first time. Louis' mother teaches him her family's pedigree. Louis's only childhood friends are Sibella (Joan Greenwood) and her brother, a local doctor's children. When Louis leaves school, his mother writes to her kinsman Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, a private banker, for assistance in launching her son's career, but receives only another snub. Louis is forced to work as an assistant in a draper's shop. When Louis's mother dies, her last request, to be interred in the family vault, also goes unanswered. Sibella ridicules his proposal and marries Lionel (John Penrose), a former schoolmate with a rich father. After Louis quarrels with customer Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, the banker's only child, Ascoyne has Louis dismissed from his job. Louis then resolves to kill him and the other seven people (all played by Alec Guinness) ahead of him in succession to the dukedom.〔It is mentioned that the Chalfont dukedom, unlike most, can descend to and through female heirs.〕 After arranging a fatal boating accident for Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, Louis writes a letter of condolence to his victim's father, Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, who relents and employs him as a clerk. Gradually becoming a man of means, Louis rents a bachelor flat in St James's and commences an affair with Sibella. He next targets Henry D'Ascoyne, a keen amateur photographer. He is also charmed by Henry's wife, Edith (Valerie Hobson). After fatally substituting petrol for paraffin in the lamp of Henry's darkroom, Louis attends the funeral and views for the first time the remaining D'Ascoynes. He later approaches the Reverend Lord Henry D'Ascoyne, posing as a retired colonial bishop, and poisons his port. From the window of his flat, he shoots down the balloon from which the suffragette Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne is dropping leaflets over London, remarking: "I shot an arrow in the air. She fell to earth in Berkeley Square" (parodying Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem 'The Arrow and the Song'). General Lord Rufus D'Ascoyne receives a jar of caviar, which explodes when he opens it. Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne presents a difficulty, as he rarely sets foot on land, but he conveniently insists on going down with his ship after causing a collision at sea. Edith agrees to marry Louis. They notify Ethelred, the childless, widowed eighth duke, who invites them to spend a few days at the family seat, Chalfont Castle. Ethelred casually informs Louis that he intends to marry again to produce an heir. To forestall this, Louis stages a shooting "accident", but before murdering the Duke he reveals his motive. Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne dies from the shock of learning that he has acceded to the dukedom, thus sparing Louis a murder he would have regretted committing. Louis becomes the tenth duke and is welcomed by his new tenants, but his triumph is short-lived: a Scotland Yard detective arrests him for murder. Lionel had been found dead following Louis's rejection of his drunken plea for help to avoid bankruptcy. When Louis is charged with his murder, he elects to be tried by his peers in the House of Lords. During the trial, Louis and Edith are married. Sibella, in love with him and having an inkling of Louis' crimes, falsely testifies that Lionel was about to seek a divorce, naming Louis as co-respondent. Ironically, Louis is convicted of a death that he had not even contemplated. Louis is visited in prison by Sibella, who observes that the discovery of Lionel's suicide note and the sudden death of Edith would enable Louis and Sibella to marry. Louis indicates agreement to the tacit proposal. Moments before the hanging, news of the discovery of the suicide note reaches the prison governor. Outside the prison, Louis finds both Edith and Sibella waiting for him. Pondering his dilemma, he quotes from ''The Beggar's Opera'': "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!" When a reporter approaches to tell him that ''Tit-Bits'' magazine wishes to publish his memoirs, Louis suddenly remembers the detailed written confession he left in his cell. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kind Hearts and Coronets」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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