The Ladykillers: 1955, dir. Alexander Mackendrick. Seen on DVD (March 10).
I realized I had better see the 1955 movie The Ladykillers pretty soon because the Coen brothers have directed a remake of this movie, and it would be fun for me if I’d seen the original one first. (This is a definition of “fun” that only works for film geeks/critics/writers, in which you get to compare versions and notice what elements the filmmakers chose to keep and what to transform in the remake.) I normally don’t like remakes very much, but I like the Coens so I am looking forward to seeing the remake.
I am particularly looking forward to the remake now that I’ve seen the original, because I didn’t find The Ladykillers to be nearly as funny as I’d expected.
I haven’t seen a lot of the Ealing comedies (British comedies from the 1950s, named for Ealing Studios where they were shot) but I do love Kind Hearts and Coronets and Alec Guinness is always entertaining to watch. So why I was a little disappointed with The Ladykillers?
For one thing, the movie seems too slowly paced. This is essentially a caper film, or strictly speaking, a dark-comedy heist film, and so I expect a certain amount of fast-paced action. Admittedly this may be one of those things that modern audiences are used to, because we see a lot of fast-paced movies, whereas audiences seeing the movie when it was first released might not have had such expectations.
But the movie did seem to drag. It takes too long to get to the heist. There are too many long conversations without much humor in them. Alec Guinness is very amusing as Professor Marcus, but the other characters are a bit too one-note, and not in a funny way. Herbert Lom’s character was too angry, for example. Peter Sellers is incredibly restrained, considering his later roles. And the little old lady is just annoying at times. The characters were neither sympathetic nor entertaining.
I did like the business with the railroad tracks. The birds were pretty funny too. And I liked the bit after the heist in which the little old lady berates people on the street into confusion and anger and chaos.
But somehow the movie fell a bit flat and didn’t provide me with nearly as much amusement as other movies I’d seen recently, like Dick or Best in Show. I admit that I don’t like most 1950s movies—Billy Wilder movies are a notable exception, and I was hoping that Ealing comedies would be an exception too. Not that this is preventing me from renting The Lavender Hill Mob soon.
Hrm. Well, you may turn out to be disappointed in the remake too. See, the whole point of the first one is to watch Alec spout all those immensely long speeches and prevaricate all over the place – as you’ve noted, the other criminals are mostly nonentities. If you don’t like watching Guinness do this schtick, there’s not a lot else to it. (Well, the little old lady has her moments, but since she is exactly like the oblivious grandma from Tweety and Sylvester cartoons, it works for about six minutes, then it chafes.)
This differs from the other Ealing films, because in those, Guinness is basically the empty center, the catalyst, doing and/or causing the strange things he does while remaining completely pokerfaced and not even talking much. In Ladykillers, he talks – a lot – and is basically having to carry the story on his back.
The thing is, I have seen two or three clips from the new one at this point and I’m convinced it’s going to be the same way – Hanks is going to have to carry it. You will either like his schtick – which is rather different from Guinness’ – or you won’t. Still should be worth the experiment though.
Saw the Coen film last night, and I’ll put my two cents in and say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. Hanks is excellent, but I really think it’s Irma Hall who holds it all together in the end.
And anyone who’s seen it will be able to crack me up for the next several weeks simply by coming up to me and saying, “GIMME THE FCKIN’ DONUT MONEY!”