Cinema
The Ladykillers
Alexander Mackendrick · 1955
Synopsis
Mrs Wilberforce, an elderly widow, lives alone with her parrots in a crooked house built above a railway tunnel, near King's Cross. She lets two rooms to Professor Marcus, who receives four friends there: they say they are an amateur string quintet and play a Boccherini record while they plan the robbery of a cash delivery at the nearby station. The old lady finds herself charged, without knowing it, with fetching from the station the trunk in which the money is hidden.
Context
The screenwriter, the American William Rose, said he had dreamed the whole plot; he nevertheless left the production midway, after quarrels, notably with the associate producer. The director, for his part, had been born in Boston and had grown up in Glasgow. The crooked house was built for the film at the end of a real street in the neighbourhood, now demolished. The actress who plays the old lady, Katie Johnson, was seventy-six; she won the British acting award for this film and died two years later.
Who it is for
Ninety-one minutes, in colour, in English with subtitles or in a French version; the 1955 print ran six minutes longer.
Prizes and reception
The last film by its director for Ealing, winner of a British award for the screenplay, and remade by the Coen brothers in 2004.
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