Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2189 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-13
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 87 minutes

Synopsis
THE LADYKILLERS, director Alexander Mackendrick's third Ealing farce, is the final comedy produced by the famous studio and one of its most celebrated. Alec Guinness stars as the superbly shifty, toothily threatening Professor Marcus, the leader of a crime ring planning a heist. Marcus rents rooms from a sweet, eccentric old lady, Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), in her crooked London house. The professor and his co-conspirators, blowhard Major Courtney (Cecil Parker), creepily suave Louis (Herbert Lom), chubby Harry (Peter Sellers), and muscleman One-Round (Danny Green), pose as an unlikely string quartet using the rooms for rehearsal. Dodging Mrs. Wilberforce's constant interruptions, the hoods hit upon the idea to use her in the daring daylight robbery (filmed in and around London's Kings Cross station). When the old girl discovers the truth, Marcus and company cannot persuade her to stay buttoned up about it and thus decide to do her in.

Customer Reviews

great film, bad dvd
The Ladykillers is one of the greatest British comedy films ever, with a uniformly superb cast. However, while the picture quality is fine, the sound on this dvd is abominable, like a bad cassette tape. I also bought Kind Hearts & Coronets in the same series and that is equally bad. To knock out such classic films on such cheaply produced dvds is reprehensible and the manufacturers should be ashamed.

"No-one touches Mrs Lop-Sided!"
It never really got any better than this at Ealing - a comedy masterpiece. Loads of entertainment value here, from the gang of crooks posing as a string quartet, to the wonderfully dotty little old lady with a vivid imagination and a noisy parrot. Lots of nice little cameos here too (including Frankie Howerd as a frustrated barrow-boy). The casting is just perfect, including an outrageously disguised Alec Guinness as "The Professor", a "wide boy" Peter Sellers and a gangsterish Herbert Lom. The story is excellent and it's all in colour. This is a DVD to treasure and one that you will watch again and again.

Brilliant period Ealing
Love this. The settings are fabulous with the steam trains of the time being integral to the plot. The house interiors are extremely well done and add bags of atmosphere, look for the time when The Prof does the washing up with a whole exterior wall missing-as for the musical ensemble deception, an old record player becomes a 50's hi-fi so good that no one notices musicians missing or the record getting stuck. The gang never eat bar one old ladies party but seem to live on tea, the heist is so simple its a wonder any currency trip ever made it, one of the stars is a parrot called General Gordon-just get it or rent it. The like will not be made again-remake, phooey, doesnt come close.