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A savage jest, saturated with class hatred and narrated in a tone of droll understatement by its unflappable serial-killer protagonist, Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price).

Quite possibly the darkest of the Ealing Studios comedies, it isn’t very funny—even by the stiff-upper-lip standards of the Brits, the humor is so dry and nonchalant as to appear nonexistent—but Hamer’s gift for character observation is generous and insightful, which he cleverly echoes in the fiber of the film’s early scenes.

I keep wondering how the film manages to stay so light in spite of the notional black comedy of its plot. I think it has something to do with the sense of being out of time that I mentioned earlier: not timeless, but resistant to time.

This was Hamer’s masterpiece, and though his troubled life and career were sadly brief, it surely entitles him to be mentioned in the same breath as, say, Max Ophüls, and to be considered one of the great British directors.

Hamer's direction is bracingly cool and clipped, yet he's able to draw something from his performers... that transcends the facile comedy of murder; there's lyricism, passion, and protest in it too.

With a broad range of characters—young and old, men and women, as caricatures or with honesty—Kind Hearts is perhaps the perfect example of Guinness’ work with the Ealing comedies, as an actor whose ability to embody a diverse cast never got bogged down in garrish pantomime. With naturalism, Guinness’ roles in his Ealing comedies brought a human realness to the absurdity of the films.

It is in this delicate balancing act between bad taste and bad manners, that Kind Hearts And Coronets is probably one of the few movies that can sell the death of twin babies by diphtheria as a comic moment. As a movie it remains a jewel in the crown of the finest comedy production line Britain ever saw.

The best thing about this film, though, is its razor sharp script. Not a word is wasted as the dialogue bristles with double meanings and Louis' sly observations. Ealing was rightly famous for this kind of writing and this film showcases it at its best. It's a comic masterpiece you'll never tire of watching.

The screenplay bristles with such sharp little ironies, but Kind Hearts remains memorable less for its caustic dialogue than for the cold-blooded matter-of-factness in which it's delivered.

Despite its murders and intrigues, its betrayals and blood feuds, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" has a dry and detached air... The movie is unusually dependent on voice-over narration, objective and understated, which is all the funnier by being so removed from the sensational events taking place.

This is an exceedingly funny film, scintillating with rapid witty dialogue by John Dighton and Robert Hamer, who has also directed with excellent taste.