Editing The Ladykillers (1955 film)

{{Short description|1955 comedy film by Alexander Mackendrick}}
{{about|the 1955 film|the 2004 remake film|The Ladykillers (2004 film)|other uses|Ladykillers (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2014}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = The Ladykillers
| image          = The Ladykillers poster.jpg
| caption        = Original film poster by [[Reginald Mount]]<ref name="TNA">{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/artists/mount_reginald.htm|title=Reginald Mount|work=The Art of War|publisher=[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]|access-date=7 January 2014}}</ref>
| director       = [[Alexander Mackendrick]]
| producer       = [[Michael Balcon]]
| writer         = [[William Rose (screenwriter)|William Rose]]
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[Alec Guinness]]
* [[Cecil Parker]]
* [[Herbert Lom]]
* [[Peter Sellers]]
* [[Danny Green (actor)|Danny Green]]
* [[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]]
* [[Frankie Howerd]]
* [[Katie Johnson (English actress)|Katie Johnson]]
}}
| music          = [[Tristram Cary]]
| cinematography = [[Otto Heller]]
| editing        = [[Jack Harris (film editor)|Jack Harris]]
| studio         = [[Ealing Studios]]
| distributor    = [[The Rank Organisation]]
| released       = {{film date|df=y|1955|12|08|UK}}
| runtime        = 91 minutes
| country        = United Kingdom
| language       = English
| budget         = 
}}

'''''The Ladykillers''''' is a 1955 British [[black comedy]] [[crime film]] directed by [[Alexander Mackendrick]] for [[Ealing Studios]]. It stars [[Alec Guinness]], [[Cecil Parker]], [[Herbert Lom]], [[Peter Sellers]], [[Danny Green (actor)|Danny Green]], [[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]], and [[Katie Johnson (English actress)|Katie Johnson]] as the old lady, Mrs. Wilberforce.<ref name="The Ladykillers 1955">{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/80720/the-ladykillers#credits|title=The Ladykillers 1955|publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]]|location=[[Atlanta]]|access-date=11 July 2016}}</ref>

[[William Rose (screenwriter)|William Rose]] wrote the screenplay,<ref name="The Ladykillers 1955"/> for which he was nominated for an [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay]] and won the [[BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay]]. He claimed to have dreamt the entire film and merely had to remember the details when he awoke.

==Plot ==
Mrs. Wilberforce is a sweet and eccentric old widow who lives alone in a gradually subsiding house, built over the entrance to a railway tunnel in [[Kings Cross, London]]. With nothing to occupy her time and an active imagination, she is a frequent visitor to the local police station where she reports fanciful suspicions regarding neighbourhood activities. The officers there humour her but give her reports no credence whatsoever.

She is approached by a sly and sinister character, "Professor" Marcus, who wants to rent rooms in her house. Mrs Wilberforce is not aware that Marcus has assembled a gang of hardened criminals for a sophisticated security van robbery at the [[London King's Cross railway station|nearby railway station]], who plan to use Mrs. Wilberforce's house as a base of operations. The gang includes the jittery and gentlemanly con-man Major Courtney, the [[Cockney]] [[spiv]] Harry Robinson, the punch-drunk ex-boxer 'One-Round' Lawson and the cruel and vicious continental gangster Louis Harvey. As a cover, Marcus convinces the naive Mrs. Wilberforce that the group is an amateur [[string quintet]] using the rooms for rehearsal space. To maintain the deception, the gang members carry musical instruments and play records of [[Boccherini]] and [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]] during their planning sessions.

The criminals successfully carry out the heist, and trick Mrs. Wilberforce into retrieving the disguised money from the railway station herself. As the gang departs her house with the loot, One-Round accidentally gets his [[cello]] case full of banknotes trapped in the front door. As he pulls the case free, banknotes spill forth while Mrs. Wilberforce looks on. After she learns from a visiting friend that a robbery has taken place nearby, Mrs. Wilberforce finally sees the gang's true colours and informs Marcus that she is going to the police.

Stalling, the gangsters try to convince Mrs. Wilberforce that she will be considered an accomplice for holding the cash. Marcus asserts that the heist was a victimless crime as insurance will cover all the losses and the police will probably not even accept the money back. Mrs. Wilberforce wavers, but eventually she rallies, and the criminals decide they must kill her. No one wants to do it, so they [[sortition|draw lots]] using matchsticks. The Major loses, but he tries to make a run for it with the cash.

While Mrs. Wilberforce dozes off, the criminals double-cross each other and end up killing one another in rapid succession. The Major falls off the roof of the house after being chased by Louis, Harry attempts to escape with the money, but he is killed by One-Round, and One-Round is killed by Louis after he leaves his gun's safety catch on and fails to shoot Louis and Marcus. Marcus kills Louis by luring him down a ladder by the bridge overlooking the railway and dislodging it, causing Louis to fall into a passing railway wagon. Before falling into the carriage, Louis fires a last shot at Marcus which nearly hits him. Within moments, Marcus himself is struck on the head by a changing [[railway semaphore signal|railway signal]], and his body drops into another wagon. All the other bodies have been dumped into railway wagons passing behind the house and are now far away.

Mrs. Wilberforce is now left alone with the plunder. She goes to the police station, but they do not believe her story. They humour her, telling her to "keep the money". She is puzzled but finally relents and returns home. Along the way, she leaves a banknote of large denomination with a perplexed [[starving artist]].

==Cast==
[[File:Katie johnson ladykillers.jpg|right|thumb|Katie Johnson with (''l to r'') Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Alec Guinness and Danny Green]]
*[[Alec Guinness]] as Professor Marcus
*[[Cecil Parker]] as Major Claude Courtney
*[[Herbert Lom]] as Louis Harvey
*[[Peter Sellers]] as Harry Robinson
*[[Danny Green (actor)|Danny Green]] as 'One-Round' Lawson
*[[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]] as the Superintendent
*[[Katie Johnson (English actress)|Katie Johnson]] as Mrs Louisa Wilberforce
*[[Philip Stainton]] as the Station Sergeant
*[[Frankie Howerd]] as the barrow boy
*[[Kenneth Connor]] as the taxi driver (uncredited)
*[[Lucy Griffiths (actress, born 1919)|Lucy Griffiths]] as Miss Pringle (uncredited)
*[[Harold Goodwin (English actor)|Harold Goodwin]] as the parcels clerk (uncredited)
*[[Stratford Johns]] as a security guard (uncredited)

Alec Guinness is thought to have based his performance of Professor Marcus on the actor [[Alastair Sim]], as he believed that the role was made for Sim; although critic [[Philip French]] wrote in 2015 that "there’s another possible source for the appearance of Marcus, with his prominent teeth and pale, cadaverous features, and that is the self-publicising critic and man of the theatre [[Kenneth Tynan]], who had written a monograph on Guinness and been an assistant on the disastrous 1951 [[Festival of Britain]] production of ''[[Hamlet]]'' starring Guinness."<ref>{{cite web|first=Philip|last=French|website=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/25/ladykillers-classic-dvd-review-philip-french|title=The Ladykillers review – the greatest comedy caper|date=25 October 2015|accessdate=2 April 2023}}</ref>

Robinson was the first major film role for Peter Sellers; he would later appear with Lom in five of ''[[The Pink Panther (film series)|The Pink Panther]]'' films.

Sellers and Guinness would appear together again in ''[[Murder By Death]]'' (1976).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/441533/ |title=screenonline.org.uk, part of the British Film Institute (BFI) |publisher=BFI Screenonline |access-date=18 September 2017}}</ref>

==Production==
''The Ladykillers'' was the last [[Technicolor]] [[List of three-strip Technicolor films|three-strip movie]] filmed in the [[UK]].<ref name="vcF/tlk">{{cite web |title=The Ladykillers |url=https://vintageclassicsfilm.co.uk/movies/the-ladykillers/ |website=Vintage Classics |access-date=27 August 2024}}</ref>

<blockquote>"When Alec, as the Professor, is killed by a railway signal falling onto his head, the production crew made sure that this would not in fact happen by placing a metal pin half an inch above the level of Alec's head. Lines were drawn in chalk to mark where he should stand for the shot. When it came to the take, however, the signal sheared the metal pin and tore the back of Alec's jacket. He had been standing an inch or two in front of the chalk mark – a mistake that saved his life."<ref name="ppr/AG">{{cite book |last1=Read |first1=Piers Paul |author1-link=Piers Paul Read |title=Alec Guinness: the authorized biography |date=2005 |publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]] |location=New York |isbn=0743244982}}</ref><ref name="sF/end">{{cite news |last1=Dutta |first1=Debopriyaa |title=The Ladykillers Could Have Been The End For Alec Guinness |url=https://www.slashfilm.com/815833/the-ladykillers-could-have-been-the-end-for-alec-guinness/ |access-date=27 August 2024 |publisher=/Film |date=30 March 2022}}</ref> – [[Piers Paul Read]]</blockquote>

William Rose left the production midway, following arguments with director Alexander Mackendrick and associate producer Seth Holt, leaving them to complete the script from his notes.<ref name="sO/441533">{{cite web |last1=Duguid |first1=Mark |title=Ladykillers, The (1955) |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/441533/index.html |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=27 August 2024}}</ref>

==Awards and nominations==
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| [[29th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]]
| [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay|Best Screenplay – Original]]
| [[William Rose (screenwriter)|William Rose]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="4"| [[9th British Academy Film Awards|British Academy Film Awards]]
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source|Best Film from any Source]]
| rowspan="2"| ''The Ladykillers''
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best British Film|Best British Film]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role|Best British Actress]]
| [[Katie Johnson (English actress)|Katie Johnson]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay|Best British Screenplay]]
| William Rose
| {{won}}
|}

==Reception==
===Box office===
According to the [[National Film Finance Corporation]], the film made a comfortable profit.<ref>U.S. MONEY BEHIND 30% OF BRITISH FILMS: Problems for the Board of Trade: ''The Manchester Guardian'', 4 May 1956. p. 7.</ref>

===Critical response===
The film received critical acclaim from critics. On [[review aggregator]] [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds a rare [[List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes|approval rating of 100%]] based on 31 reviews, with an [[weighted arithmetic mean|average score]] of 8.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "''The Ladykillers'' is a macabre slow-burn with quirky performances of even quirkier characters."<ref>{{cite web | url= https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1011818-ladykillers | title= ''The Ladykillers'' (1955) | publisher= [[Rotten Tomatoes]] | access-date= 26 July 2022 }}</ref> On [[Metacritic]], the film received a score of 91 based on 7 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".<ref>{{cite web | url= https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-ladykillers-1955 | title= ''The Ladykillers'' (1955) | publisher= [[Metacritic]] | access-date= 26 July 2022 }}</ref>

The [[British Film Institute]] ranked ''The Ladykillers'' the [[BFI Top 100 British films|13th greatest British film of all time]]. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'' magazine saw it ranked the 29th best British film ever.<ref>[https://www.timeout.com/london/film/100-best-british-films#tab_panel_4 "The 100 best British films"]. ''Time Out''. Retrieved 24 October 2017</ref>

===Reputation===
In 2000, readers of ''[[Total Film]]'' magazine voted ''The Ladykillers'' the 36th greatest comedy film of all time, and ''[[The Guardian]]'' labelled it the 5th greatest comedy of all time in 2010.

== Adaptations ==
[[File:The Ladykillers at the Gielgud (6481418261).jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Ladykillers (play)|The Ladykillers]]'' playing at the [[Gielgud Theatre]] in the [[West End theatre|West End]], December 2011.]]
*In 1966, the film was adapted into an [[opera]] by the Czech composer [[Ilja Hurník]] under the name ''The Lady and the Robbers'' (''Dáma a lupiči''), which was premiered in [[Brno]] in October 1973.<ref>James Helme Sutcliffe. Czechoslovakia : 'The Ladykillers'. ''[[Opera (British magazine)|Opera]]'', January 1974, Vol. 25 No. 1, p.40 & 57.</ref>
*In 1969, the film was adapted into Egyptian film "Thieves But Funny" (original name: لصوص ولكن ظرفاء) starring [[Ahmed Mazhar]] and [[Adel Emam]].<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8711822/ Losos Laken Dhurafa'a] on [[IMDb]], Retrieved 30 December 2023</ref>
*On 13 January 1996, an adaptation for [[radio]] of the film, by Bruce Bedford, was first broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]] starring [[Edward Petherbridge]] and [[Margot Boyd]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jnlr |title=BBC radio programmes catalogue entry |publisher=BBC|date=26 November 2012|access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref>
*In 2004, the [[Coen brothers]] directed an American [[The Ladykillers (2004 film)|remake of the film]], starring [[Tom Hanks]], [[Irma P. Hall]], [[Marlon Wayans]], [[J. K. Simmons]], [[Tzi Ma]] and [[Ryan Hurst]]. The setting of the film is moved from [[London]] to [[Saucier, Mississippi]], home of a [[riverboat casino]].<ref name="The Ladykillers 2004">{{cite web|url=http://alt.tcm.turner.com/tcmdb/title/452160/Ladykillers-The/full-credits.html|title=The Ladykillers 2004|publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]]|location=[[Atlanta]]|access-date=11 July 2016|archive-date=13 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713103554/http://alt.tcm.turner.com/tcmdb/title/452160/Ladykillers-The/full-credits.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
*In 2011, the film was adapted as the play [[The Ladykillers (play)|''The Ladykillers'']] by [[Graham Linehan]]. It premiered at the [[Liverpool Playhouse]] in November that year before transferring to the [[Gielgud Theatre]] in London with [[Peter Capaldi]] as Professor Marcus.<ref>{{cite news|author=Graham Linehan |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/dec/18/graham-linehan-dynamited-ladykillers |title=How Graham Linehan dynamited The Ladykillers |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.london-theatreland.co.uk/theatres/gielgud-theatre/the-ladykillers.php |title=Play details on Gielgud Theatre site |publisher=London-theatreland.co.uk |access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref>
*In 2013, the play was revived at the [[London]] Vaudeville Theatre<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vaudevilletheatre.org.uk/ |title=Vaudeville Theatre |publisher=Vaudeville Theatre |date=9 October 2007|access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref> and subsequently toured the [[UK]] and [[Ireland]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theladykillers.co.uk/category/news/ |title=» Latest News |publisher=Theladykillers.co.uk |access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref> This revived production featured a new cast.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bestoftheatre.co.uk/blog/post/ladykillers-review |title=The Ladykillers Review – Best of Theatre News |publisher=Bestoftheatre.co.uk |date=15 July 2013|access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref>
*In June 2019, the play had its North American premiere at the [[Shaw Festival]] in [[Niagara-on-the-Lake]], [[Ontario]], Canada with [[Damien Atkins]] as Professor Marcus and Chick Reid as Mrs. Wilberforce.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.shawfest.com/playbill/the-ladykillers/| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190507130433/https://www.shawfest.com/playbill/the-ladykillers/| archive-date = 2019-05-07| title = The Ladykillers  |publisher=Shaw Festival Theatre}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[BFI Top 100 British films]]
* [[The Pardoner's Tale]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{cite news |title=The Ladykillers: watch the opening eight minutes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2015/oct/29/the-ladykillers-ealing-opening-eight-minutes-video |newspaper=The Guardian|date=29 October 2015 }} – [https://cdn.theguardian.tv/webM/2015/10/28/151028Ladykillers_synd_768k_vp8.webm<!-- https://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/10/28/151028Ladykillers_desk.mp4  https://cdn.theguardian.tv/3gp/small/2015/10/28/151028Ladykillers_small.3gp --> video]
* {{TCMDb title|id=80720}}
* {{Rotten-tomatoes|1011818-ladykillers}}
* {{IMDb title|id=0048281|title=The Ladykillers}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190418060724/http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/Ladykillers/ Then and now photographs of locations] Martin Underwood, January 2014
* [http://www.reelstreets.com/index.php?option=com_films_online&task=view&id=526 'The Ladykillers' Locations] at Reelstreets.com
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W07jipxwXk 'The Ladykillers' locations documentary] at [[YouTube]]

{{Alexander Mackendrick}}
{{Michael Balcon}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ladykillers, The}}
[[Category:1955 films]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Metropolitan Police officers]]
[[Category:1955 black comedy films]]
[[Category:1950s crime comedy films]]
[[Category:1950s heist films]]
[[Category:British black comedy films]]
[[Category:British crime comedy films]]
[[Category:British heist films]]
[[Category:Ealing Studios films]]
[[Category:Films adapted into operas]]
[[Category:Films directed by Alexander Mackendrick]]
[[Category:Films produced by Michael Balcon]]
[[Category:Films set in London]]
[[Category:1950s English-language films]]
[[Category:1950s British films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Tristram Cary]]
[[Category:Films about widowhood]]
[[Category:English-language black comedy films]]
[[Category:English-language crime comedy films]]