La signora omicidi

If you had to choose a film that represented British Cinema at its best, you'd be hard-pressed to find one better than "The Ladykillers". The story, the sets, the actors, the photography, the humour, are all perfect. There isn't a bad performance anywhere, and that goes for everyone, including those who only briefly appear. The ladies who arrive for an afternoon tea party are all wonderful. Even the parrot, who creates mayhem amongst the thieves by escaping and flying around the room, puts in a perfect performance. Curiously the story is by an American, yet he has managed to portray all the idiosyncrasies that makes British humour what is is. The wonderful thing about the bunch of thieves is that they are all equally excellent. Alec Guinness with his crooked teeth, Peter Sellers' spiv, Herbert Lom's dark psychopath, Cecil Parker's colonel character and Danny Green's dumb heavyweight - with the wonderful nickname of one-round. The cameo performances of people like Frankie Howerd, Jack Warner, just add to the completeness of the film. But Katie Johnson is absolutely superb and the house she lives in, a fantastic creation of a Victorian house precariously sitting on top of a railway tunnel. The ending is incredible and if you thought that it might tail off here, well it doesn't. I cannot recommend it enough. Any student of British Cinema or those just wanting a really good laugh, this is the film to start with.

One of the Ealing studio's finest achievements, this immensely entertaining crime caper looks at first glance to be pure, inconsequential entertainment. But it doubles as a sly, subtle rummage around the psychology of the respectable, old-fashioned middle classes, with Katie Johnson deserving top billing alongside Alec Guinness (she doesn't get it) for her remarkable turn as the lady in question, the redoubtable Mrs Wilberforce.

No less than the not-quite-ruthless-enough gang of criminals who scheme in her house, she lives in her own private universe with its own particular rules and values. Though she begins the film as the stereotype of a maddeningly officious pillar of local society, it gradually emerges that there is a freer as well as shrewder spirit locked in there than meets the eye. The umbrella she is always losing (she herself suggests that she unconsciously _wants_ to lose it), the escapologist parrot, and most poignantly the memory of a 21st birthday party interrupted by the end of the Victorian age, all hint at an inner life that the comic plot could easily have done without. The screenplay, deservedly Oscar-nominated, has the genius and economy to provide us with all these hints without ever slowing down a tightly-edited and superbly directed narrative.

The other characters are a good deal simpler, but Alec Guinness is in impressively seedy form as 'Professor' Marcus and Cecil Parker makes an appealing Major. Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom don't have a great deal to do and don't try to hog the limelight, but there's a nice cameo from Frankie Howerd. Ealing went out on a high.

Soon after this atmospheric black comedy begins, aged widow Johnson putters around her house (situated near a railyard) as an imposing shadow seems to peer at her from every window (accented by dramatic music.) When she opens the door, there stands Guinness, in one of his amusingly creepy personas. He rents a room from the lady and arranges to have his cronies come over to practice their quintet. Unfortunately, he has something else in mind and the quintet is merely a cover for a greater plan. The film has detail, wit and character to spare. Guinness (and his friends, played by legendary character actors like Sellars and Lom) are a funny, motley lot. However, the story really belongs to Johnson. Shamefully underbilled and unsung, she perfectly embodies the role at hand and is incredibly memorable in her understated sweetness and supposed vulnerability. This is a woman who looks for the best in everything and everyone and fights injustice whenever she encounters it. Johnson gives a quiet, yet towering performance and it is astonishing how disrespectful her billing is in the film and how little she's been given even in recent packaging. There is nothing wrong with Guinness's work, but this is Johnson's film. (Ironically, according to Robert Osborne, a younger actress was cast in the film, to be made up as older, because the producers felt that the sometimes demanding director would be too much for Johnson to bear. However, that actress died before filming, so Johnson was used and got on fine!) It is truly the type of film that won't be made again. (It may be RE-made, but never with the same quaint, understated style, nor with such polished actors.)

I was fortunate that Channel 4 in the UK showed this original classic film at the same time the new remake was about to hit the cinema screens. Many thanks therefore for providing two hours of classic cinema that showed clearly why Americans should not bother with naff remakes.

A classic ensemble of some of the UK's finest acting talent o the time pull of a heist in the centre of London but when their landlady finds out what they are up to, a bizarre sequence of events leads the gang to turn on each other in a brilliant and amusingly written, directed and produced film.

Whilst railway nostalgists will be wondering at the vintage footage of steam hauled trains coming out of St Pancras station and goods yard, others will be marvelling at the brilliant characterisations and script that makes this a timeless classic from Ealing studios.

And then the Americans decide on an Americanised remake – WHY?!? Apparently we are promised [unnecessary] remakes of all of the Ealing comedy classics – can't wait for the Titfield Thunderbolt to be remade with a Class 66 and a 4-VEP then!

The humor in this movie is not only British, which is notoriously misunderstood by American audiences (and vice versa), which is odd because both the writer and director were American, but it is also now five decades old. Only the best American comedies have lasted anywhere near that long (consider, for example, the sad fate of many of the movies that people thought were really funny in the 80s – Police Academy, anyone?). The reason The Ladykillers has not only survived but has now been remade is because the comedy in it is not only effective, but it is intelligent, and it is very difficult not to be impressed by a comedy with a brain.

Alec Guinness is in top form as the leader of the gang, whose members reflects criminals of all walks of life. The ingenious plan is to rent out a room from a sweet old lady while they pull off a heist. The comedy, for me, lies in the difference between what is planned and what is played out, particularly in the difficulties that the gang of criminals have in outsmarting a sweet old lady who acts like a grandmother supervising a group of unruly grandchildren.

The problem that the movie has is that the pace is very slow and much of the comedy has faded over the years, but structurally and intellectually it remains a respectable film, even more now in comparison to its disastrous remake. What went wrong in the remake is that they did not maintain who the character of Mrs. Wilberforce was, because it was the juxtaposition of her as a frail old woman surrounded by toughened criminals that made it funny when things kept going wrong in their plan. In the remake she is replaced by Mrs. Munson, a tough-talking woman who was to be feared from the outset. There is no irony in being overpowered by someone more powerful than yourself from the outset, which I imagine is why the remake also featured Marlon Wayans and a case of irritable bowel syndrome, which I have never seen used in an even remotely amusing way.

While the original film may be a bit too slow for modern audiences, it is indeed charming the way 87-year-old Mrs. Wilberforce continually foils their carefully thought out plans, many times inadvertently. Alec Guinness is wonderful as the band's leader, wearing outrageous false teeth, nearly rivaling Lon Chaney as the man of a thousand faces, and Peter Sellers is one of the criminals as well. I'm no expert about British comedies or Alec Guinness' early works, but I can certainly tell enough from watching this movie that the Coen Brothers' remake did nothing to impress the British about Hollywood's respect for the classics.