The Ladykillers (Mackendrick, 1955): Cinema Museum, 7.30pm
This is a 35mm presentation.
Time Out review:
Alexander Mackendrick and Ealing's resident American writer William Rose had already collaborated on The Maggie
when they came together again for this, the last, most enduring and
best known of all the studio's comedies, in which the sheer blackness of
the central concept is barely disguised by the accomplished farce which
surrounds it. Little Katie Johnson, the innocent hostess to a gang who
find it easier to silence each other than her, proves resistant to
science (Alec Guinness' fanged 'Professor'), strategy (Parker's 'Major') and
all shades of brute force and ignorance as she unwittingly foils a
criminal getaway that never reaches beyond St Pancras. A finely wrought
image of terminal stasis, national, political (Charles Barr suggests the
gang as the first post-war Labour government), and/or creative (the
house as Ealing, Johnson as Balcon??). Whatever, Mackendrick immediately
upped for America and the equally dark ironies of Sweet Smell of Success.
Paul Taylor
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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