MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

This boxed set contains five of Alec Guinness' finest films, all produced by the venerable Ealing Studios. The films in this collection are Kind Heart and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, and The Captain's Paradise. The films are presented in transfers that preserve their original theatrical aspect ratios. The English soundtracks are fine, but occasionally reveal limitations in the source recordings. Supplemental materials include trailers, and a biography of Guinness. Collectors should be advised that this collection marks the first time The Captain's Paradise has been made available on DVD. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 5
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (Vistavision), 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV, Black and White
• Features:
  • • cc Full frame presentation
    • Widescreen presentation
    • Theatrical trailers
    • Alec Guinness bio
    • English and French language tracks

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Story and Screenplay - 1952 (T.E.B. Clarke)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1956 (William Rose)
•     Nominated Best Story - 1953 (Alec Coppel)
•     Nominated Best Actor - 1952 (Alec Guinness)
•     Nominated Best Screenplay - 1952 (Roger MacDougall, Alexander MacKendrick, John Dighton)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best British Actress - 1955 (Katie Johnson)
•     Won Best Screenplay - 1955 (William Rose)
•     Won Best British Film - 1951 (Charles Crichton)
•     Nominated Best Film - Any Source - 1955 (Alexander MacKendrick)
•     Nominated Best British Film - 1951 (Alexander MacKendrick)

• Directors Guild of America

•     Nominated Best Director - 1952 (Charles Crichton)

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Screenplay - 1951 (T.E.B. Clarke)
•     Won Best Actor - 1950 (Alec Guinness)
•     Nominated Best Foreign Film - 1952
•     Nominated Best Foreign Film - 1950

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1986

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Anthony Kimmins, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton, Alexander MacKendrick

• Producer:

  Anthony Kimmins, Michael Balcon, Sidney Cole

• Screenwriter:

  Alec Coppel, Nicholas Phipps, John Dighton, Robert Hamer

• Book Author:

  Roy Horiman

• Screenwriter:

  T.E.B. Clarke, Roger MacDougall

• Play Author:

  Roger MacDougall

• Screenwriter:

  Alexander MacKendrick, William Rose

• Screen Story:

  William Rose

• Cinematographer:

  Edward Scaife, Douglas Slocombe, Otto Heller

• Composer (Music Score):

  Malcolm Arnold

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Muir Mathieson

• Composer (Music Score):

  Ernest Irving

• Featured Music:

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• Composer (Music Score):

  Georges Auric

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Ernest Irving

• Composer (Music Score):

  Benjamin Frankel, Tristram Cary

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Dock Mathieson

• Editor:

  Gerald Turney-Smith, Peter Tanner, Seth Holt, Bernard Gribble, Jack Harris

• Art Director:

  Paul Sheriff, William Kellner, Jim Morahan

• Associate Producer:

  Michael Relph, Michael Truman, Seth Holt

• Costume Designer:

  Julia Squire, Bridget Sellers, Anthony Mendleson

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Stephen Dalby

• Makeup:

  George Partleton, Harry Frampton, Ernest Taylor, Alex Garfath

• Special Effects:

  Syd Pearson, Geoffrey Dickinson

• First Assistant Director:

  Jack Causey, Norman Priggen, Tom Pevsner

• Camera Operator:

  Peter Newbrook, Jeff Seaholme, Chic Waterson

• Choreography:

  Walter Crisham, Tutte Lemkow

• Production Manager:

  Sydney Streeter

REVIEWS:

• The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers can almost serve as companion pieces to each other. Both are hilarious British caper comedies of the 1950s, but both also feature astonishingly different central performances from Alec Guinness. While in The Ladykillers Guinness is a fiendish crook whose criminality is evident from his first appearance, in The Lavender Hill Mob he is a mousy milquetoast named Holland, the unlikeliest of thieves who uses the trust that others place in him to set his plan into motion. Guinness' delightful performance as Holland earned him his first Oscar nomination, and he is supported by a fun cast that includes Stanley Holloway, Sidney James, and Alfie Bass. T.E.B. Clarke's Oscar-winning script ingeniously sets up the story by having Holland recount his tale after-the-fact, and Clarke's characters and story line possess an unpredictability that makes the film easily maintain interest throughout. More than 35 years later, director Charles Crichton made another caper comedy, A Fish Called Wanda, that recaptured the carefree sensibility that makes The Lavender Hill Mob so enjoyable. It is also worth noting that a very young Audrey Hepburn has a brief appearance in the opening scene and veteran character actor Peter Bull can be quickly spotted in an unbilled cameo. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, Rovi
• Forever Ealing, a lovely documentary about Great Britain's famed studio, saves for last in its chronology the best of all Ealing comedies, this bonbon with a very dark, hard center. It is almost impossible to find fault with any aspect of this film, from its opening shot of Mrs. Wilberforce's house at the dead end of a city street overlooking a train yard to the same closing shot. William Rose's script economically sketches the slightly lopsided world of a little old lady seemingly oblivious to anything complex or sophisticated, as Mrs. Wilberforce makes her way through her neighborhood to the police station, where her visits to report strange activities are quite well-known. Rose takes us quickly through the heist, and at the film's halfway point, the story turns on the discovery by Mrs. W. of the money inside the cello case. For all their bravado, however, the gang of robbers who would menace her are nearly as harmless as their intended victim. None of them relish the idea that Mrs. W. cannot live to report them to the police. They would do anything -- even turn on each other -- rather than bump off the only person who can finger them. Alexander Mackendrick's direction is remarkably restrained; the slapstick moments are believably set up and executed with finesse. Nothing feels frantic here, right down to the amazing choreography of bodies falling off the railroad bridge in the last act. Alec Guinness, playing a man who understands all too well how the "human element" is the only variable in any master plan, and Katie Johnson, as a woman who is both sweet and determined, both carry the film; the looks that pass between Prof. Marcus and Mrs. Wilberforce when she realizes the truth about him and his friends are eloquent beyond description. Peter Sellers fans may be disappointed that he's not given more to do here, though it is amusing to watch him and Herbert Lom, future adversarial colleagues in the Pink Panther comedies, working together. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
• Few movies define "droll" better than this dry and subtle comedy that gently nudges laughter from its audience. In the tradition of other great Ealing comedies of the 1940s and 1950s, The Man in the White Suit sets up its comic premise with well-crafted care (the screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award), and the cast splendidly brings its genial eccentrics to life. Alec Guinness is superb as the cheerfully obsessive scientist Sidney Stratton, who despite his peculiarities seems genuinely driven to improve the world; Guinness's determination, genial self-confidence, and dash of private school arrogance make Sidney more than a standard absent-minded genius. Director Alexander Mackendrick gives the material just the right amount of buoyancy while playing the comedy with sly simplicity; if The Man in the White Suit aims for chuckles rather than belly laughs, it generates enough of them to be an engaging and intelligent entertainment from start to finish. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
• The Captain's Paradise is not one of the legendary Ealing Studios films which Alec Guinness made in the 1950's, but it's from the same era and has much the same feeling. It also is somewhat more forced and direct than the Ealing offerings, which tended to glide about a bit before landing on their comic targets. This is a forgivable shortcoming in what is otherwise a bright and engaging comedy. While modern audiences may wince at the set-up and find it too dated in terms of male-female relationships, the eventual outcome reveals that Captain's Paradise was a bit more ahead of its time than it initially seems. The Alec Coppel-Nicholas Phipps script is engaging, relying more on character comedy than lines that witty in and of themselves, and supplying enough comic situations to keep the film rolling happily along. Alec Guinness, of course, is the key player here, and without him the film would be only modest fun. He's a fully fleshed-out bounder, and he pulls all the right strings to make the audience alternately go along with and laugh at him. The always-dependable Celia Johnson is a delight, making the most of her chances to let herself go, and Yvonne DeCarlo is a believable sexpot with homebody leanings. All in all, Captain's Paradise is great fun. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
• Kind Hearts and Coronets is an elegant black comedy that is perhaps too much remembered for the gimmick of having Alec Guinness play eight different murder victims and too little remembered for the fine performance of Dennis Price as the murderer. One of several comedy classics of the post-WWII era from Ealing Studios, the film is both ironic and bitingly funny. While the ending of the British version leads the audience to believe that Price will escape punishment for his crimes, American censors insisted that the criminal had to be punished for U.S. distribution, and so a less amusing ending was tacked on for the benefit of overly sensitive Yanks. Also of note is Joan Greenwood's performance as the murderer's childhood friend Sibella. Ealing was often an underfunded studio, so the production values are modest, though adequate. If there is an area in which the tech credits shine, it is the make-up and costuming of Guinness. ~ Richard Gilliam, Rovi