75 years of Kind Hearts and Coronets: how locations from the murderous Ealing classic look today

Ealing comedies often posses a dark streak. Though synonymous with a particularly English brand of warm, cosy humour, in fact several of them indulge in the blackest comedy. This is never more apparent than in Robert Hamer’s murderous classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, which first premiered 75 years ago on 13 June 1949. With a rich cast of British character actors – famously including Alec Guinness playing no fewer than eight roles – a deliciously devious script and an atmosphere that mixes the genteel with the macabre, Hamer’s film is the pinnacle of Ealing’s brilliant output.

Kind Hearts and Coronets follows the dastardly Louis D’Ascoyne Mazzini (Dennis Price). He is recollecting his past for his memoirs, which he is writing in prison while awaiting the death penalty. The well-spoken Louis and his Mama (Audrey Fildes) were cast out from the aristocratic family of the D’Ascoynes (Alec Guinness’s multiple roles) after she eloped with an Italian opera singer. When the family refuse to help Louis with his career, and even deny his mother a place in the family vault after her death, Louis swears vengeance: his plan being to insinuate himself into the lives of the remaining family members in the succession so he can murder them one by one and eventually become the Duke of Chalfont. But will his love life, balanced between his conniving childhood sweetheart Sibella (Joan Greenwood) and the widow of one of his victims, Edith (Valerie Hobson), scupper his plans for the dukedom?

Hamer’s use of locations throughout the film is distinctive and surprisingly gothic at times. From seemingly innocuous suburbia and Edwardian retreats to country seats, castles and villages, the breadth of locations gives the film a visual strength above its more studio-bound peers.

Here are five locations from Kind Hearts and Coronets as they stand today.

Having been disowned by the D’Ascoyne family, Mama brings Louis up in a suburban street. We see the street a handful of times as Louis slowly makes his way up in the world. The shot below of Mama posting a letter shows the street to be Woodhurst Road in Acton.

The post box in the next shot, likely a prop, is on the corner between Woodhurst Road and Cumberland Road. Today there is merely a street sign.

The actual house on Woodhurst Road where Louis and Mama live is just down from where the post box is. However, getting a clear shot today is difficult due to the road’s many cars.

Hamer provides a wider shot of the road when a carriage pulls up outside of the house. Today, the road is choked with cars, giving the impression that it has shrunk since the time of filming.

Throughout the film, a church provides the setting for the succession of Chalfont funerals. In fact, the church used is St Mary’s in Denham, nowhere near the real location of the D’Ascoyne castle.

The church is nestled in the centre of Denham village and seen multiple times throughout the film. As with many rural locations, the building is unchanged.

Denham itself is also seen a few times during the film, especially as Louis’s murder spree becomes more successful. The following shot, for example, is taken on Village Road, with St Mary’s Church seen behind.

It wouldn’t be an Ealing comedy without some fragment of the real Ealing appearing. In Hamer’s film, the area provides the location for Sibella’s house. This grand mansion was situated on Grange Road, only a stone’s throw away from Ealing Studios. However, the entire house has been demolished since filming and replaced by a block of flats.

Though the whole row of neighbouring buildings has been replaced, the new flats do somewhat map onto the older layout of the more extravagant houses, allowing for a surprisingly accurate then and now shot.

The only real evidence that the location is the same is the wall to the side, with its remaining pillar being the sole surviving aspect of the original site.

Louis’s first victim is Ascoyne D’Ascoyne (Guinness), a cad and a bounder. Louis tries to ingratiate himself with D’Ascoyne and his mistress when they take a secretive trip outside of London for a bit of boating, much to their later misfortune. The hotel where they stay is by the Thames where it runs through Maidenhead. The Cruikshanks’ Hotel was The Guards’ Club in Maidenhead, but it has sadly been demolished.

Though the main building has been demolished, other shots from Guards Club Park can be pin-pointed thanks to a surviving feature: a metalwork pedestrian bridge.

As this bridge remains intact, all manner of shots from the scenes before Louis’s first murder can be worked out, including this shot below showing tables sat right next to the bridge.

This last shot before the pair’s fateful journey downriver is marked by the other surviving feature of the area: the Bath Road Bridge. This gives a good indication of where the demolished building stood, though the location today is far from the lavish Edwardian holidaying locale of the film.

Throughout the film, Louis’s real goal is to return to his native seat of Chalfont Castle, as well as avenging his wronged mother. The castle was, in fact, the historic Leeds Castle in Kent. Seen throughout the film, it is photographed from various angles though many are the views from the side of the castle are difficult to match due a private golf course. A handful of shots, however, can be recreated, such as this establishing shot taken from the other side of the fortress.

We also see the entrance to Leeds Castle and the bridge over the moat several times. The bridge and entrance are naturally unchanged, and also had a starring role in the Doctor Who story, The Androids of Tara (1978).

IMDb
ReelStreets

Kind Hearts and Coronets is out now in a new UHD edition from StudioCanal.

It’s available to stream on our US-only service BFI Player Classics.