仁心与冠冕

那不过是，一片年轻的虚张声势 但它也是那些注定，要长成橡树的橡子之一 纯旁白的讲述引人入胜，几乎已经做到极致了。 如果有一个时刻，我不切实际的梦想变成了坚定的信念的话，那就是在那时。 必须记住，我曾经非常年轻，而且，我不是天生无情。 如果你曾经感觉到，一个专一的崇拜者持久的支持，会对你有所帮助的话，我会非常荣幸，如果你允许我，向你伸出婚姻之手。 请把我刚刚说的，仅仅当做某种引诱，如果你有一丝丝那样的倾向的话。 每个人都是基尼斯，一人分饰八角空前绝后，原来经历完成相同，我就说那平淡的背后，分明看得出压抑着什么。（那个动作是闭眼，抬眉，微张嘴再必上。） 要亲身体会过那种委屈与痛苦，才能看得懂片子，因此，艺术是金字塔，说的并非仅仅是审美造诣，生活经历也是必不可少的一部分。 我会说你是一大堆不理想的一个完美组合。 必须要再强调这种全旁白式的介入，旁白的声音与角色的声音相同。 你把全伦敦最快乐的男人留在了身后。 女人有一种独特的能力，能将无意义的事变得有意义。 茜贝拉最后的眼神，已经黑化了。 不得不说最后这个结局有那么一点点蛇，怎可能聪明一世糊涂一时呢，这个糊涂实在是不合适的。

As far as a sociopath goes, Louis D’ Ascoyne Mazzini (Price), the 10th Duke of Chalfont, is not entirely a disagreeable person, although, you might not want to be associated with him at all events, his murderous intent is motivated by accountable vengeance, and he simply wants what is his birthright, only the rub is, there are precisely eight prior dukedom candidates still breathe the same air like him, with which he is bent on doing away.

This Ealing studio’s Edwardian dark comedy is most renowned for the gimmick that Sir Alec Guinness plays all the 8 toffs bearing the D’Ascoyne names (ranging from fop, banker, clergyman, admiral to a suffragist dame) who would one by one, obliviously or not, all too facilely reduce to Louis’ victims, though some of the characters are rather sketchy, Guinness is distinctly pleasurable in donning different garbs, accoutrements and cosmetics, braving his characters’ repetitive pending perdition, again and again, without batting an eyelid.

But the backbone of this morbid affair is irrefutably rooted in Louis, and Price acquits himself superbly with an impeccable layer of politesse, even if when it comes to blows, yet, wearing his heart tangibly on his sleeve, every cunning pensée, every flickering of trepidation or concealed elation, is registered in perfect modicum, and his cool, calm and collected guise is almost too delectable and very nearly, blots out the repugnant aftertaste of the death-dealing practices his Louis perpetrates with cold-blooded precision and aloofness (if not at all practical or plausible).

While the overall performance from the cast defers rigorously to the deadpan seriousness borne out of unalloyed British dignity, which is tonally apposite for a comedy with a darker spine, its pungent irony thrusts deeper into the frothy surface, as we are all led to believe that Louis, who is introduced in the beginning as an inmate on the death row, gets his comeuppance for his dastardly acts, the reveal is that he is indeed wrongfully sentenced for a crime he didn’t actually commit (by his peers in the House of Lords, no less), and moreover, he can get away with that in the eleventh hour if he connives to exact another dispatch which transmutes his solitary derring-do to a folie à deux with his mistress Sibella (a throaty Greenwood is not mincing words to be a faux-naif but with a lethal difference), who outfoxes him for her own social-climbing scheme, they make an adorable pair!

Finally, waffling between his demure wife Edith (a high-toned Hobson) and Sibella, Louis suddenly apprehends that his seemingly brighter future is hanging by a thread as the confessional memoir he minutely composes has been mislaid in the prison cell, and open to anyone who might discover it. This cunningly ambiguous coda is delivered as a timely curveball to a satirical sophistication making the most of the contrast between the prim and proper demeanor and the vile and egocentric ego, a deathless treat for those who consider murder quite a laughing matter in the medium of fiction.

referential entries: Henry Cornelius’ GENEVIEVE (1953, 6.9/10); Alexander Mackendrick’s THE LADYKILLERS (1955, 7.7/10).