Four Pints of Guinness: The Ladykillers (Dir Alexander Mackendrick, 1h 31m, 1955)

It's somehow fitting we end this season with The Ladykillers; it is, after all, the final Ealing Comedy to star Alec Guinness, but more than this, it is a farewell to arms. By the end of 1955, Ealing Studios, financially beleaguered, would be part of the BBC, with one final comedy, 1956's Who Done It? largely out-of-character and largely famous for being Benny Hill's cinematic debut, produced before the sale. By the end of 1955, Guinness would be busy preparing for the role that would catapult him to international fame, as Colonel Nicholson in Bridge over the River Kwai (1957), and cement him as one of the great British actors of the next thirty years. Ealing would not become independent again till 1995, with their filmography once again focusing upon comedies, like Notting Hill (1999), Shaun of the Dead (2004), and the reboot of the St Trinians franchise (2007-2009).

The Ladykillers, though, is more than just the end of an era; it feels, in its tale of five criminal masterminds meeting their match in an interfering and innately cautious little old lady (Mrs Wilberforce, played by Katie Johnson), like Ealing revisiting itself, seemingly aware of its impending takeover. It is a film that masterfully returns Guinness to role of villain, as the deeply sinister Professor Marcus and surrounds him with a rogue's gallery that takes in gone-to-seed boxers (Danny Green's 'One Round') to spivvy gangsters (the arrival of the great Peter Sellers, already a star of radio, in cinema, and emblematic of the changing nature of comedy in Britain), winds up this mismatched quartet, as their heist begins to unravel and they set upon each other. It is a return, wholesale, to the studio's focus of barely contained violence and English charm.

Between The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers, Ealing remained a powerhouse of British cinema; there are, of course, slight tweaks to the formula. Meet Mr Lucifer (1953), for example, shows the harms of television with Stanley Holloway playing the devilish titular villain, whilst The Love Lottery explores celebrity, and certain disappointments; His Excellency (1952) a pale imitation of his previous works by Hamer, whilst The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) is charming, but overly derivative of the studio's previous films. Guinness, meanwhile, was busy, with the comedic thriller The Captain's Paradise (1953), the war film Malta Story (1953), the two comedies, Father Brown (1954) and To Paris with Love (1955), and the psychological thriller, The Prisoner (1955).

It is, undeniably, as we've already seen throughout this season, once again Guinness's film, but it is with Mrs Wilberforce that the film begins with; compared to the other major Ealing protagonists, she is, despite her busybody nature, an altogether more law abiding and, certainly more timid, figure than that of Guinness's, and Ealing's everyman heroes, and the perfect foil to the criminals that she will soon (unwittingly) share her house with. Once again, though, she is one of the great archetypes of British comedy, the interfering, curtain twitching figure who reports any and all infractions to the police, that still manages to be a charming, and sweet-natured old lady who, against the rogue's gallery of Guinness and Sellers et al, we cannot help but root for. She returns home to her increasingly derelict home, passing a penniless artist, and the local newsagent, where she enquires, fruitlessly, if someone has asked about the room.

Guinness's own appearance, in stark contrast, is a thing of barely concealed menace; we first see him in silhouette, tailing Mrs Wilberforce back to her front door, then as a shadow against the windows, as her trio of parrots become more and more agitated, before, silhouetted in the door, it is finally opened to him. Enter thus, Guinness's best villainous role, "Professor" Marcus, the man behind the heist that will soon be enacted, in which, heavily made up and with false teeth and his hair combed over, Guinness channels the figure of theatre critic, Kenneth Tynan (a well known figure to Guinness as a staple of stage criticism), in appearance-something that Tynan never himself seems to have taken note of-and his close friend, Alistair Sim (originally to play Marcus) in the voice. As he lowers the paper, leering, so we are introduced to the sinister Marcus, the instigator and chief architect of the and, as he rents out the room, so we are rapidly introduced to the rogue's gallery that, outwardly, masquerade as a string quintet, but, using records to mimic their performance, are actually planning a robbery at King's Cross.

This quintet are, for all the qualities of Mrs Wilberforce, the best thing about the film, and from their very introduction, in which their personalities are fleshed out masterfully, from the slow and stolid One-Round to the charming, if overly trusting Major (Cecil Parker), to the way that Herbert Lom's continental gangster, Louis, slinks into view, keeping in the shadows until introduced by Marcus. It is here that the conceit begins, with the quintet retiring to Marcus's rooms to plot, leading to the extremely funny subterfuge of the group having to run back and forth to their instruments and record player in an anteroom as Mrs Wilberforce, innocently playing the host, keeps interrupting their plotting.

This is only compounded by their fumbling attempts to keep her out of the rooms, and her compliments for the group's playing-particularly aimed at the clueless One-Round, who has to fumble away through compliments on his double-bass playing, and Mrs Wilberforce reminisces on her half-forgotten childhood at the turn of the century. Even before their heist, there is the sense of growing tension within the group, largely instigated by Mrs Wilberforce, as the gang are lumped with menial tasks like feeding her birds their medication, and assisting with the crumbling infrastructure of the house, leading to more moments of remarkably slapstick comedy.

The heist itself is almost matter-of-fact, our quintet quickly overtaking the vehicle that they've been trailing, and stealing the colossal stash of bank-notes from practically under the noses of the nearby police, their blockade and theft only uncovered as they are making their escape, and from here, the next part of the plan, in which Marcus and his gang proceed to deliver the case of money to King's Cross, for Mrs Wilberforce to collect. What follows is as a masterfully tense-and extremely funny-sequence, the quartet, minus look-out man, Major, fighting inside a telephone box for the receiver, awaiting news. For her part, the unwitting Mrs Wilberforce once again almost uncovers the plot, her busybody nature almost revealling what is in the trunk she collects for Marcus. We follow their responses, the group almost collapsing in relief as she leaves the station, only to be stirred back into action as she is followed by a police officer, only to reveal he is trying to return, in one of the film's running gags, her mislaid umbrella.

With the money now safely back in the hands of Marcus and his gang, so everything seems to be in the clear, the gang allotting the vast piles of cash up between them and making their excuses to leave-but, with One-Round getting his case trapped in the door, so the entire film pivots, as the money spills out onto the street, Mrs Wilberforce opening the door to this at once astonishing and suspicious scene. From here, despite the attempts of the group to cover it up, so the lack of an instrument, and the large amounts of money in the process of nearly blowing away finally arouses her suspicion, and she threatens to call the police. The quintet, including Harry, who has tried to make his escape down the street, are forced to bundle her inside, and the film transforms into a noirish, and occasionally hellish subterfuge, as they first try to convince the wavering Mrs Wilberforce that she will be implicated in the crime, and then, when this fails, that the crime they have committed is practically victimless, adding a single guinea per year onto everyone's insurance premiums.

And it is here that the film refines itself down to a battle of wits between Mrs Wilberforce and Marcus, between the resolute sense that these men have done something very wrong and, at the least should be ashamed of themselves, return the money and hand themselves into the police, a forthright position that she sticks to throughout the second half of the film, and the sense, from Marcus, that they are in the right, only held up from their escape by this interfering old lady, and, in one scene, her friends that unexpectedly arrive, casting even more confusion over proceedings. This is further compounded by the unexpected resolution by their would-be captive that she will take them to the police, despite the crime being victimless and she being a party to it. Against her, Marcus, and his gang resolve to kill her, and here, things begin to unravel quickly

What follows is one of the greatest setpieces in comedy history is the complete collapse of their scheme into bloody infighting, in blackly comic moments. First, the group draw lots, but find they cannot kill her, with the Major baulking at the task, and attempting to escape with the money, only to, as the true infighting begins, fall off the roof, chased by the vengeful Louis to his death, taking the chimney with him. From here, things gather pace quickly, with Harry, joking about killing Mrs Wilberforce, killed by One-Round, who, despite his slowness, has come to like the old woman, bodies by now being routinely dumped into passing freight trains by members of the gang, in a macabre series of departures, through which Mrs W proceeds to sleep.

One-Round, in turn, growing suspicious of the scheming of Marcus and Louis, corners them, but is shot dead, his gun misfiring, before, finally snapping under the pressure, Marcus begins to be convinced that the little old lady is simply unkillable and undefeatable, and that she was always going to derail his plans. He proceeds to destroy the ladder Louis is trying to use, dropping the hapless gangster into a passing train, before the signal descends onto his head, and his body joins Louis's in the departing trucks, leaving Mrs Wilberforce with the money. The police uninterested, she heads for home, handing the starving artist a large denomination note. The last we see of her is this, as the artist tries, helplessly, to attract her attention, before he pockets the note at last.

The Ladykillers is the end of an era, a savagely funny film in which its hapless villains are no match for a little old lady, where five major figures in British acting, some that would begin their career here, ad cross paths over the next few decades, butt heads for an hour and a half until their avarice and mistrust turns them on each other, with none left alive to reap the rewards. It is, undeniably, from the villainous figure of Marcus, a wonderfully creepy creation that lingers, perhaps longer than any other aspect of the film, downwards, the darkest and most brutal Ealing ever got. It feels like a studio, a director, utterly assured of just how far he, and they, can take it, and it is a film of masterful suspense.

It feels, in hindsight, like Ealing could only go south from here. Kind Hearts may still be the best film the studio ever made, but it belongs to a different age, even if the two films are only separated by eight years, and with colour, with the brutality, and barbed humour of the late 1950s, the grit replacing grandeur, so it feels like the perfect finale for Ealing. The studio would produce a handful of comedies after The Ladykillers, but neither these, nor the well-meaning if ill-judged remake by the Coens, hold a candle to it. Guinness would never return to the studio that he is so often connected to, and would see it independent once more for only a few years before his death in August 2000.

And yet the two are intertwined. Without Ealing, Guinness would perhaps never have become as well known a comic as he was a dramatic actor-without Guinness, it's almost impossible to imagine Kind Hearts, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, or, yes, The Ladykillers. Guinness makes these films, as hero and antagonist, just as they made him one of the most famous actors in British cinema. In The Ladykillers, it's impossible to think of the film without him, that venomous grin, the mop of dishelved hair, and a head full of schemes, in a film in which, at the height of his powers, he creates one of British cinema's greatest criminal villains, and the film proceeds, with the help of a little old lady, to unravel him, and his schemes to spectacular, and brutal, results.

Rating: Must See (Personal Recommendation)

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