Customer Reviews

The Alec Guinness Collection (Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Ladykillers / The Man in the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise)

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Then check out this collection of these wonderful, classic Ealing Studios comedies starring the inimitable Alec Guinness. Odd and whimsical, these films are loaded with not only astringent British wit, but also quirky and vivid characterizations, social satire, and just pure fun and outright slapstick. They cast a bemused and knowing eye on British attitudes of class & propriety, and poked sharp fun at them. Briefly:

THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT: A brilliant but stubbornly obtuse and obsessed scientist pursues his dream of a miracle fabric in the heart of the British textile industry, in the end pleasing no one but himself. As he is beset by conservative owners on one side, and radical unionists on the other, we get a light satire on the mixed blessings of technology.

THE CAPTAIN'S PARADISE: A ship's captain has a wife in each port, one for domesticity and one for fun. So pleased with his own pleasure he doesn't realize that each woman is only half-fulfilled by such an arrangement until the applecart is upset.

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS: Guinness plays all the members of an aristocratic family being done-away-with by a disinfranchised illegitimate heir (a deliciously arch Dennis Price). A bunch of clueless upper class twits are done-in by a clever and ruthless "tradesman".

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB: An apparently meek and unambitious clerk masterminds the perfect gold heist with the aid of some bumbling cohorts. Everything that goes wrong turns out to go right and they bring off a huge robbery. But, of course, there is a snag....proving the "wobbewy" was the easy part. (Loved the lisp!)

THE LADY KILLERS: Saved the best for last. Guinness is the "Professor" a brilliant, half-mad mastermind of a motley gang of crooks. Using his unwitting landlady in the train robbery, a brilliant but "flawed" stroke, the gang is stymied in their getaway and begins to deconstruct themselves one by one while trying to "deal" with Mrs."Lopsided". This delectably dark little comedy is a gem, building its hilarity bit by bit concisely and economically. A classic comedy.

In all of these films Alec Guinness is ably supported by some of the cream of British acting, including: the aforementioned Dennis Price, plus Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Ernest Thesiger, Michal Gough, Stanley Holloway, Herbert Lom and Peter Sellars.

For those with a taste for wit and whimsy, these classic films are a delight!

The films are:
Kind Hearts & Coronets
The Lavender Hill Mob
The Man in the White Suit
The Ladykillers
The Captain's Paradise
The last is available only in the set while the others can be bought
separately.

The movies, of course, are all excellent so I'm just commenting on the quality of the DVDs.
I got the collection for Christmas and haven't watched all the films yet but did go through the ones I haven't watched to see how the transfers looked -- all extremely good, probably the best I've ever seen them.
"The Ladykillers" is MUCH improved over the VHS versions I've rented which tended to have both very greyed out blacks and blown highlights. The film is in widescreen format with black bars at top and bottom. The rest of the movies were filmed in 4x3 ratio - which is how they are presented.
There are closed captions but only the type that must be set on the TV - the white lettering within a black band. There are none of the type available on many DVDs without banding, however I think most Tv sets, at least the ones owned by those of us who need the captions are now capable of showing the standard caption format. For everything I've watched so far the captions are quite correct.
Which brings up the sound. English film soundtracks (and the BBC -- especially the BBC) have always been somewhat poor. It isn't simply a matter of us Yanks not being able to comprehend the accents, but of truly terrible sound equipment and perhaps a somewhat less than skilled bunch of sound recordists. These DVD transfers sound just okay compared to something like the DVD of "The Maltese Falcon" but they sound much better than the VHS
editions of the same films so I'm pretty happy and I expect most people will be able to follow the dialog without problems. For one thing all these movies were made before the "F/X boys got control of the soundtracks -- yet another crime perpetrated by George Lucas and the other hacks who've made the movies practically a brain-dead medium.
In terms of extras:
Every film comes with the trailer -- for those who want to watch the damn things.
Every film is available dubbed into French -- don't ask me about the sound quality - I haven't listened.
Every film carrys a brief bio of Guinness. There is one oddity in that one of his best early films "The Card" (US title "The Promoter") is not mentioned in the course of the bio and is not included in the filmography. There may be others missing too, but I wanted to place The Card in it's time related to those the the collection and it simply wasn't there.
There is also no mention of the film appearance he made in 1936 which is left out of most lists but is in Halliwells book of movie people - I don't know if Halliwell was right or wrong on that.
The only other thing of major interest is on Star Wars, where (According to the bio) Guinness was supposed to be an on-screen presence throughout the film, but managed to convince Lucas that he would be much better as a ghost, and therefore got his character killed off early to avoid hanging around mouthing banal dialog for the entire shoot. As one who has avoided all Lucas films since my own children got old enough to go to the theater without me, I think Sir Alec made an excellent choice -- The Smart was with him.
Overall I am very happy with my DVDs and anxiously await the next set which I HOPE includes "The Card" along with "Last Holiday" "All at Sea" "The Horse's Mouth" and "Our Man in Havana". The third set could start with "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist". "HMS Defiant" would have to be in there, but "Tunes of Glory" although a great movie is perhaps too much of a downer to watch very often -- once a decade, perhaps... perhaps not that often. It's been at least 12 years since I last saw it, and I'm not sure I'm up for it yet.
If you like Guinness, get this collection. I don't care what kind of Guinness you like, I know this set will go down smooth.

From the Ealing Studios and the 50s via Anchor Bay comes a terrifc, long overdue set of sly, witty, intelligent satires and farces starring the late Sir Alec Guiness. All the titles are availbale as single discs, but the only way to get the marvelous THE CAPTAIN'S PARADISE is to buy the set.

In THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, find out what happens when an idealist young chemist (Guinness) invents a fabric that won't wrinkle, won't get dirty and won't wear out. What's a miracle fabric to the consumer is the end of a job to mill workers and soon Guinness is the must hunted man in the UK.

No, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is not about the gay mafia. It's about a meek bank clerk (Guinness) who devises a plot to steal the gold bullion in his own bank by melting it down and molding it inside little Eiffel Tower souvenirs to be shipped to France. Naturally things go wrong and the delicious suspense is in rooting for the bad guys to get away with it.

THE LADYKILLERS is a very black comedy about a gang of crooks who rent a room from a kindly, elderly lady. But her constant interference (tea and cookies anyone?) with their perfect crime plans is too much and they decide to kill her. Sadly, they don't know what they are up against when evil confronts pure innocence (or so it seems). Peter Seller is featured in his first major screen role. Guinness is wonderful as a pale, demented, buck toothed cold-hearted, cynical criminal mastermind.

In KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS Sir Alec plays eight very different roles. Dennis Price costars as a man who decides to knock off all his d'Ascoyne relatives that stand in his way of inheriting a dukedom. A terrific twist ending.

And THE CAPTAIN'S PARADISE is about a droll, confient ferry boat captain (Guinness) who has a dutiful British housewife in Gibralter and spitfire vixen spouse in Tangier -- his two ports of call. A careless anniversary gift spoils the charade. Not only must he outwit two betrayed women, he must outsmart a firing squad. A terrific movie that reveals just about all you need to know about the battle of the sexes.

This great set of nearly forgotten Guinness films will be fresh to a new generation of videophiles. I have the collection and the transfers look great. Limited extras include a Guinness bio and trailers. Worth every penny.

As other reviewers have noted, these superb comedies from the golden age of British cinema showcase Alec Guinness' considerable skills, proving him to be as great an actor in his own way as the late Marlon Brando. And as others have pointed out, the DVD transfers are incredibly good for British films of this vintage. I've never seen Man in the White Suit looking better. Please note that poor sound recording equipment was a particular problem for British filmmakers of this era, so the sound can occasionally seem muted. This is a problem with the source, not the transfer.

The extras are a little disappointing compared to other Anchor Bay releases. (Yes, their Guinness filmography is incomplete.) But the value of this collection can't be beat. It's one of the best buys out there, so do yourself a favor and pick up the whole collection before Anchor Bay lets it go out of print, as other British titles in their catalogue have done.

Random comments to address other reviews:

All the films are presented in their proper aspect ratios. The Ladykillers is the only widescreen film here. (All the others were filmed before 1952, hence before the days of widescreen.)

Captain's Paradise is NOT an Ealing Studios film; it was produced at London International (the same place that oversaw production of The Third Man, so its credentials are good).

In Britain, this collection was partnered with another collection of Ealing comedies (via another distributor). Since Anchor Bay has also released Ealing's horror anthology Dead of Night (also recommended), they may be persuaded to distribute those films too if this collection sells well. Those films (Whiskey Galore, Passport to Pimlico, etc.) are equally superb, so let's keep our fingers crossed!

This set contains the same movies that were included in the Anchor Bay collection a few years ago (Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Ladykillers / The Man in the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise).

Unless I am mistaken, these films were shamefully hard to find on videotape (or DVD for that matter) until the release of this marvelous set of Ealing Studio films from the 1950s. Alec Guiness was marvelous actor who played both dramatic and comedic roles equally well. In this set, we see five very different performances, showing the comic genius of this great actor, who incidentally plays eight (!) characters in one film (Kind Hearts and Coronets). Each of the films is a gem (the plots of which are well summarized in other reviews), with very well-written scripts, with lots of unexpected twists and turns. The transfers are excellent and the sound quality is very good -- this is an excellent set to own at a very reasonable price. Highly recommended.

As for the films, they are great and have been so since they were released (sorry, I don't want to restate the obvious). I'm happy to say that the transfer by Anchor Bay is superb - everything you wish for in a DVD: sharp focus, brilliant contrast, good sound ... the film of course is in Technicolor (color) and widescreen (1.66:1) ... there is no reason not to buy this Guinness Collection, but every reason for old or would be new buffs to buy it. Believe me: they just don't make movies like these any more. And there never will be another Alec Guinness.

I am 24 years old so one would not expect me to be a huge fan of these "older" films. On the contrary I am not just a fan I love them. One of my bosses turned me on to them a few years ago and I was always a huge Peter Sellers fan (mostly for his Pink Panther series) but after picking up this collection I found it to be a wonderful addition to my film library. Yesterday during the blizzard I watched four of the five disks. I found Kind Hearts and Coronets to be not only an interesting story but also darkly satiical. Many scenes were so well crafted I could not help to laugh. Alec was remarkable in this film as he played 8 different characters. Quite a feat for that time and a role Mike Meyers would love. Ladykillers was the only film I had seen previous to buying this set and I must say that not only is it an outstanding caper film but the DVD transfer was superb. The image quality really has brightened up fromt he onld VHS I saw. This film also shows some of Sir Alec's truly great acting and was brutally histerical. Peter Sellers yelling at a parrot was funny to see considering he went on to many more scenes involving fowl later on in life. The Lavender Hill Mob was probably the most intriguing of the 4 I have seen. Another crime caper flick Sir Alec really starred and the story was very solid. Also there was a car chase scene in this film that was extremely well done considering the time. The last film I managed to watch was the Man in the White Suit. While this film shows Alec again at his best I found it to be a little weaker than the other three. It was funny at times and an interesting enough plot just not as good if watched in succesion with the others. The final film is the Captain's Paradise but I have yet to view that one and will not review it. All the films look great on DVD and if you are young (like me)and have never seen any of these films you are really missing out on some of the masterpieces of the film industry. The only collection I could possibly recomend more to anyone is the Peter Sellers set. Better yet, buy them both like I did.

As another reviewer mentioned the exact same titles are in The Alec Guinness Collection (Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Ladykillers / The Man in the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise). Anchor Bay is the manufacturer of that set. I have it and the transfers are fine. Specifically the video looks very good and the sound I'd probably give a solid 4 out of 5. It's not as good as what most studios put out on restored films, but the audio is much better than typical public domain quality. Since used copies of that collection go for half of what this set retails for, I'd stick with the old reliable. If you're not familiar with what Alec Guinness could do with comedy material since most of his roles in American films were of a serious nature, these five films are very worth checking out.

Alec Guinness Collection (Kind Hearts and Coronets / The Lavender Hill Mob / The Man With the White Suit / The Captain's Paradise / The Ladykillers)

The early Alec Guinness films have become the standard by which all comedic films are measured. These films are classic for the era and remain popular a half century later. If you have just discoved this talented man then these are the films to add to your collection.