Kind Hearts and Coronets

Kind Hearts and Coronets, is a classic 1949 Ealing comedy famously starring Alec Guinness playing eight different members of the D'Ascoyne family, was very loosely based on a book by Roy Horniman. However, the book was not called Kind Hearts and Coronets, but Israel Rank. The title refers to the following lines from Tennyson's 1842 poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere": "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood."

Dennis Price plays "Louis Mazzini" whose mother had blackened the D'Ascoyne name, by eloping with an Opera singer, and was consequently ostracised by the family. On the death of Louis' mother, he seeks revenge on the D'Ascoynes, aiming to inherit the title of Duke, the only flaws in the plan being those members of the family above him in line of succession. The solution in Louis' eyes is to murder his way to the title.