Dennis Price plays a man who's in line to become the next Duke of Chalfont. Unfortunately for him there's eight other people in line before him. But he doesn't let this get him down, he decides to take action and make his dreams come true . With the beauty and Splendour that is wholesome murder.
Louis Mazzini the simple man born of half royal blood. His mother was the royal ''D'Ascoyne'' order, his father was a singer from a Italian choir. Due to some unfortunate circumstances his father passes away the same day as he sets eyes upon his son. Thus leaving his mother destitute and unconnected to the world. For her royal family has no interest in her, she was foolish enough to marry for love. She does however inform her son as the years go on that he is technically the successor to her place in the family throne. But it's an unlikely chance that he should actually be the head of the family as there are so many other family members ahead of him.
And if family business wasn't a big enough problem for him, he also has to contend with being the Lesser banana in a love affair. A young woman who Lewis has fancied since his Schoolboy Is being married to a different man. Now Lewis tries to Proclaim his love for her but she'll have none of it. Proclaiming the only way she'll ever loved him is if he was either a wealthy man or a man of some higher class.
This gives Louis all the inspiration he needs to eliminate the remainder of his royal family. Alongside the disrespect the family show to his mother. Now if you ask me the love of a woman is not worth the death of eight people (that matter the love of anybody isn't worth the death of a people.) Especially when you consider that the woman he loves will trying to manipulate him in the future and will even possibly lead to his death. I guess the true moral of the story is; Even the most basic and well intentions people can become the dregs of society when corrupted by love, ego and greed.
First there was Young Ascoyne (Alec Guinness) an unrepeatable man with rudeness where his manners should have been. Lewis is eavesdropping on the conversation between the lad and his lady when he decoders that they're going to have a romantic time away from the rest of the world in a secluded Little meadow. Lewis deciding to take advantage, tails them to the meadow and sees to their demise without incident.
There's Young Henry D'Ascoyne (Alec Guinness) Luckily the fate's seemed to be in store for him. As the man was burned alive in his dark house Studio most likely drunk off his rocker as he had hidden much alcohol within it. His wife finds drinking abhorrent (which is you can imagine is a bit of a problem for your local English town man.)
There's a budding romance they'll start up later in the film involving Lewis and the newly widowed woman
There's Lord Ascoyne the banker (Alec Guinness) who gave Lewis a job upon the death of his one Son and later on or promotion after the death of his nephew. Ironically the more people die in the family the higher Lewis becomes in the banking firm. Until eventually he becomes partner and eventual successor to the banking firm itself.
And now we get to the roster of the more colourful characters within the Royal Family.
There's the bishop of the family The Reverend Lord Henry (Alec Guinness) caretaker of his local Church who's killed by poison wine. It's his introduction with the disguised Lewis (Septimus Wilkinson, Bishop of the Diocese of Matabeleland*) That leads to my favourite part of the film. Bishop Henry is walking around his Monastery expressing all the different architectures and various ideas in relation to Chaucer. In what I can only describe as theological\Architecture comedy. It may be the most obscure comedy in all the modern world.
The next three members are all incredibly over-the-top and ridiculous. Including Lady Agatha played by Alec Guinness. General Lord Rufus (Alec Guinness) and Admiral Lord Horatio (Alec Guinness)... Are you seeing a pattern yet?
Lady Agatha is a woman's rights activists in the conservative party . She likes to smash up windows cause problems and fly around in air balloons with big Billboards that Proclaim woman suffrage. She'll get shot by an arrow and plummet to her death, (that is to say your balloon will be shot by an arrow.)
The general is an over-the-top fanatic who spends most of his days telling everyone about his warring exploits. As he went through various battles in colonial Africa. His involvement in the Crimean War . where he like to acquire caviar ''the only good thing the Russians could make''. Ironically caviar would be his undoing as Lewis mails him a can that is secretly a bomb. That's the general goes out in a blaze of fire the way all military man should.
And then there's the Admiral . A man that Lewis had a particularly hard time figuring out how to kill. For he spent almost all of his days upon his battleship Louis is looking at a blueprint for a cruise missile! Admitting to himself that it may not be possible to actually kill the Admiral. Luckily for him the Admiral is a bit of a screwball and seeing another ship thinking that it's land attempts to board it. Only to end up crashing his naval ship into another naval ship. Resulting in the loss of two major vessels and one crazed Captain. Ironically everyone else survived.
We come to the Duke himself (Alec Guinness).
Who is killed when he is stuck in one of his personal traps laid out in the county of he's home. Lewis takes a shotgun and shoot them in the face then claiming it was a suicidal accident.
But before any of this happens in the film we already see that Lewis was imprisoned. Not for the death of the Royal Family but for the possible death of the man who married his former crush.
It's the only murder he didn't commit. And he's being sentenced to death row for it.
So Louis does what any man can do before knowing of their death, he writes out his Memoirs expressing every little thing he's done for out his life, from the relationships he's involved in to how he killed the Royal members of the family. Only to discover later on that he was cleared of his original charge left the maximum-security prison and forgot to take his memoirs.
Despite this being a Dennis Price movie, you can't ignore Alec Guinness. He plays 8 individual rolls arguably 9. That's unheard of. I can't think of another movie where one actor plays that many roles. I know Peter Sellers plays quite a few in the lot of films. And does a fairly decent job of it and Mike Myers play several roles in those Austin Powers films. But I don't think any of them I've ever played nine. And now Guinness gets to play the roles that he does best. Cockneyed over the top slightly full of themselves, melodramatic Upper Crust twits.
Some would argue that Alec Guinness was a bit full of himself in real life and although I think that's partially true I think it's also a response to those science fiction films he had to star in. He had few kind words for what he considered basic entertainment.
*Matabeleland is the Milwaukee of Africa. It's a semi popular region with a silly sounding name that often becomes the butt of many jokes. Also the parish priest asks Louis if he can speak some of the local dialect. Because Louis is a fraud he doesn't know how, that's resulting in him speaking some muttered garbage to cover up for his Lane disguise. So not only is he a murderer but he's a poor liar and a bit of an insensitive jerk. Congratulations Louis you're a miserable man. And Dennis Price did have great job acting as that miserable man . This might be Dennis prices best performance.Apparently the real-life Bishop of the region sent a complaint letter to the studio some years later, claiming that it degraded him and made it difficult for him to acquire finances from other countries. And although this may have been true the film's defence was that there was no Bishop of Matabeleland at the time of the film. And that in the long run it really didn't hurt the bishop all that much. As he had been promoted to an Archbishop.
Still interesting to see such a minuscule joke taken so seriously by certain people. Maybe this is the reason every modern film has that little caption that says; Any names and or places associated with real life people is purely a coincidence. Everyone in our film is fictional and is based in no way upon the real world.
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