The Ladykillers (1955) Black Comedy Noir Masterpiece

 "Heinz Edelmann's poster for the German re-release of the film gets it - Noir is its underlying Style."                                         (Noirsville) 

When I was a kid in the 1950s if I wasn't playing outside, I was glued to the TV.  

It was a two tone, white and teal, 1956 GE General Electric Model 14T008 Portable Person Television, lol. My folks got it in 1956 new and it sat on a small table in a corner of our dining room. It faced catty-corner outwards to the dinning room tale. Along the wall just past the TV was a metal cover over the radiator that sat below the window. 

For me, nothing was cooler than sitting on a dining room chair turned towards the TV, with my legs laying atop the warm radiator cover a de facto "Lazy-Boy." On Saturday mornings I was sometimes up early enough to still see a test pattern. The first program was Modern Farmer, and some sequences I can still remember, like learning how to adjust and check your valves on an overhead valve engine. It actually came in handy when I bought a '49 Chevy pickup. 

I watched that same B&W TV until the early 70's. I was living in a two family house and my aunt and uncle lived on the ground floor.  My aunt & uncle splurged, purchased a large console color TV in roughly the mid 1960s so on special occasions I'd watch at the invitation of my aunt, The World of Disney or The Wizard of Oz, etc., etc. but color broadcasting didn't really take off until the late 60's early 70's. I still remember watching The Million Dollar Movie, lots of films in Black & White on my aunts TV same movie, same time, every day for a full week. It was analogous to walking into a theater in the middle of something that you already saw, if nothing else interesting was on, on the other channels. 

Now if you aren't aware, in New York City in the late 50s early 60s we could pick up 7 channels, the three majors ABC, CBS, NBC, plus independent stations WNEW, WOR, WPIX, and WNET, there also was some UHF but I never remember watching it. The majors had premiers of movies of the week. The independents to fill their content showed a lot of off the wall and occasionally foreign films late nights. 

I saw a lot of Hollywood Classic Films Murder My Sweet, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Out Of The Past, The Lost Weekend, Sweet Smell of Success, The Big Sleep, Cat People, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Thing From Outer Space, Blood On The Moon, Pursued, Carnival of Souls, etc.. They all had a similar Visual Style, but nobody was calling them Film Noir.  

They were called Detective films, or Crime, Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Suspense, Horror, Westerns and Dramas. At the same time TV Crime programs proliferated, with often noir-ish episodes of Peter Gunn, Mike Hammer, Naked City, and Johnny Staccato. Anthology series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents along with The Twilight Zone mixed dark stories in all genres with quite a few of their episodes being also quite Noir-ish. Also in the mix were TV produced drama series like CBSs Playhouse 90, Four Star Playhouse, General Electric Theater, with their often dark stories with noir-ish "stage play" stylistic lighting effects. 

So I got my pan generic "Noir-dar" turned on and tuned in long before I even knew what it was, and I've known them when I've watched them ever since. 

This brings us to this factoid, that a lot of viewers younger than my generation may not realize, we saw all of the few color Hollywood and Foreign Noir as B&W broadcasts. When not distracted by the "color" there's no question of these films fitting in the Noir Universe. I saw Niagara, Bad Day At Black Rock (panned & scanned no doubt), Leave Her To Heaven, Dial M for Murder, and others in this manner.

I never even though about The Ladykillers as being originally a color film, and I swear that when I first saw it in color years later on TV again, I assumed it had been "colorized." 

But it's always been one of those films that I've always had that same feeling about in the back of my mind, that like those others it tipped Noir.

Directed by by Alexander McKendrick (The Man in the White Suit, Sweet Smell of Success, A High Wind in Jamaica). 

The film was written by William Rose (It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Flim-Flam Man) and uncredited Jimmy O'Connor. Trivia tells us that Rose and director McKendrick got into an argument which resulted in Rose leaving the set and O'connor having to polish up some unfinished loose ends. 

What is very interesting though is the fact that Rose claimed that the entire film was based on a single dream he had, how Noir is that?  

Dreams / Nightmares the stuff Noir is made of. 

The excellent Cinematography was by Brit Noir vet Otto Heller (Temptation Harbor, I Became a Criminal aka They Made Me a Fugitive, Queen Of Spades, Peeping Tom, Victim, The Ipcress File). Music was by Tristram Cary. It also includes variations of the Minuet in E major by Luigi Boccherini.

The film stars Alec Guinness (The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Star Wars) as Professor Marcus, Cecil Parker (The Lady Vanishes) as Major Claude Courtney, Herbert Lom (Night And The City, The Hell Drivers, Room 43, The Frightened City) as Louis Harvey, Peter Sellers (Never Let Go, The Pink Panther, Being There) as Harry Robinson, Danny Green (No Orchids for Miss Blandish, Pickup Alley) as 'One-Round' Lawson, Jack Warner (It Always Rains on Sunday, Dear Murderer, Train of Events, The Blue Lamp) as the Superintendent, Katie Johnson as Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce. 

Alec Guinness as Professor Marcus

Danny Green as 'One-Round' Lawson and Peter Sellers as Harry Robinson

Herbert Lom as Louis Harvey

Cecil Parker as Major Claude Courtney

Katie Johnson as Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce

                                                    

With Philip Stainton as the Station Sergeant, Frankie Howerd as the barrow boy, Kenneth Connor as the taxi driver (uncredited), Lucy Griffiths as Miss Pringle (uncredited), Harold Goodwin as the parcels clerk (uncredited), and Stratford Johns as a security guard (uncredited). 

Story

An areal view of a house at the end of a street. We see an elderly Mrs. Wilberforce leaving her domicile situated at the end of a dead end street the rear of the house is atop a slope to the south end portal of the Copenhagen Tunnel leading to Kings Cross Station. 

Mrs. Wilberforce wears a straw bonnet with flowers, a light pink jacket over a white top with a matching pink pencil skirt, with white spats over her shoes. She always carries a black umbrella. She is on her way to the police station. 

We cut to the interior of the police station where one of the constables looking out the window notices Mrs. Wilberforce and sounds out a warning, to get the Superintendent. 

Jack Warner as the Superintendent

The Superintendent has obviously dealt with her before. Mrs. Wilberforce is going on about her neighbor and a space ship in her garden which she explains really wasn't true, was all a dream. 

The Superintendent humors her and escorts her to the door. One of the other constables rushes out to hand her her umbrella. This seemingly insignificant occurrence of Mrs. Wilberforce, absentmindedly leaving her umbrella behind, is a foreshadowing (a Chekov's Gun), which returns again, and again to ricochet the plot in random ways and in different directions. 

Her civic duty done, Mrs. Wilberforce heads to the corner shop, thunder peals and a downpour begins. At the shop she asks the counter lady if she's had any enquiries for her advertisement of rooms to let.

Here's where the Visual Noir of the film begins to really kick in. While Mrs. Wilberforce is conversing, we pan to the actual advertisement on a support column. It is adorned with various announcements. Mrs. Wilberforce's announcement is slowly shadowed by the shape of a man. 

Our score is appropriately slightly ominous.

When Mrs. Wilberforce departs the man tails her down the sidewalk, eventually ending up at the dead end street where, at the very end , is where she resides. 

As this sequence appears in restored film below.

And  now re creating the Black & White TV broadcast appearance (how I first saw the film)  below.

We cut here to the interior of the house. She has a menagerie of three chattering parrots that erupt in a greeting when she opens the door. 

While Mrs. Wilberforce heads to the kitchen to make some tea, we go back to the ominous score as we see a dark silhouette glide by the casement window. The parrots squawk worriedly to match the music. The same silhouette glides by the kitchen window. It appears as if the man circled the house before we cut to a shadow filling up the doorway, that slowly reaches out to ring the doorbell.

The same silhouette glides by the kitchen window. It appears as if the man circled the house before we cut to a shadow filling up the doorway, that slowly reaches out to ring the doorbell.

Again the sequence blow in original color....

And the way it appeared on broadcast TV 

The Cockatoo feeling the threat, reacts to the shadow and the doorbell puffing up its feathers.

Mrs. Wilberforce absentmindedly, is still carrying the tea pot as walks out into the hall to answer the door. 

When Mrs. Wilberforce opens the door we are introduced to Professor Marcus. Marcus is a slightly sketchy, cadaverous looking gent, displaying a high receding hairline of white scraggily hair, with eyebrows two shades darker over recessed eyes, one of which is habitually squinty. He has a set of large, popsicle-stick teeth, stuffed into a too small, crooked mouth. 

Talking out of the side of it, appears to be now a habit that has permanently twisted his facade. He wears a long gray woolen scarf around his neck over a dark overcoat

He makes his introduction and asks about her rooms to let.  Mrs. Wilberforce points with the tea pot in her hand up the stairway,  Then excuses her self and brings it back to the kitchen, leaving Marcus alone to inspect the eccentricities of the house.   

It appears all slightly off, canted walls, tilted pictures upon the walls. The house is strangely out of whack. The stairway leading up to the second floor rooms is visibly twisted. 

When Mrs. Wilberforce explains its because of the subsidence, caused by the railway tunnels.

Mrs. Wilberforce shows Marcus the rooms and he is very pleased with them. 

The rooms are very suitable. 

Art Director Jim Morahan and the Art Department at Ealing have created a wonderful Dutch angled set of a lopsided house set that also uses an effective Noir color pallet that is reminiscent of Edward Hopper and Glen Orbik and also David Lynch. Dingy puke yellows, intestine greens, carnal reds, dead body blues. moldy purples, and dingy dry bone whites. Some colors are in clashing combos that create slight feelings of nausea, feeding the apprehension that things are not quite sane and on the verge of slipping out of control. 

Its the English version of what falls into the Pulp Cover Noir category like Slightly Scarlet, Hell's Island, Accused of Murder, etc.

We get a nice sequence with Marcus glancing out of the window and watches the railroad activity through a sheer curtain. (Guinness's facial expressions aping Sims are a hoot. A nice reverse shot of some classic Brit rail on display. Smoke belches from trains departing / approaching the Copenhagen Tunnel portals.

Portal of the Copenhagen Tunnel

"What's that?"

On his way out of the rooms at the top of the stairway Marcus hears voices. 

Professor Marcus: [pauses as he hears the parrots chattering downstairs] What's that? Who's talking?

Louisa Wilberforce: Well, it's only General Gordon. He belonged to my late husband. I had four.

Professor Marcus: Husbands?

Louisa Wilberforce: No, parrots. And now I've only three.

Professor Marcus: Parrots!

Marcus tells her he'll take them tomorrow and mentions that he'll be having his friends over who, all together form a chamber music group, an amateur string quintet. The rooms are just perfect for them to practice if she doesn't mind.  She answers that on no she just loves music. She heads into the parlor to get him his key so that he can come and go as he pleases.

Professor Marcus: You're most kind, and if I may say so, you have a very curious and charming house. Such, um, pretty windows.

Louisa Wilberforce: Oh, thank you, [pointing to a window] And I rather favour positions...

Professor Marcus [interrupting] I always think the windows are the eyes of a house, and didn't someone say the eyes are the windows of the soul?

Louisa Wilberforce: I don't really know. Oh, it's such a charming thought, I do hope someone expressed it!

...the windows are the eyes of a house, and didn't someone say the eyes are the windows of the soul?

 The next evening 

Later the next evening, we see Mrs. Wilberforce in her parrot room and we hear the doorbell ring. 

She goes to answer but Marcus coming quickly down the stair beats her to the door. He swings it open and pointing his finger announces for Mrs. Wilberforce to hear "Good-evening Major Cortney."

"Good evening Major Courtney."

The "Major," a husky gentleman, wears a mustache, a bowler, a camelhair coat, and has an umbrella over his arm. 

The bell rings again and the rest of Professor Marcus's quintet follow, we are introduced to Mister Lawson and Mister Harry Robinson. Lawson is a big, punch drunk. ex boxer in a pin stripe suit who goes by the name of "One Round." 

Harry is a fancy dresser and a ladies man, he's "good with the birds."

There's a lot of humorous exchanges, between Marcus's motley crew and Mrs. Wilberforce. Especially with One-Round, who doesn't quite have the spontaneous ability to adlib very well to her questions. 

So Marcus hurriedly rounds them up, and ushers them upstairs to the practice room. 

We hear the door bell again. This time Mrs. Wilberforce answers the door.(to again ominous music) and our final member Mr. Louie Harvey first appears as a silhouette against the night. 

 

He is greeted by Louisa. She tell him "good evening." Marcus, coming down the stair, intercepts them. 

He explains to Mrs. Wilberforce that Louie is " the temperamental type." 

As Marcus is directing him up the stair Mrs. Wilberforce continues her greeting saying to Louie that "Professor Marcus has told me all about you."

At that, Louie gets anxious and hesitates, Marcus reassures him and shows Louie up to the practice room with the others.

"he's the temperamental type."

Its all a ruse, they set up their instruments, and sheet music, and while Marcus puts the needle to a phonograph player the whole gang shuffles off to their adjoining caper planning room to rehearse the heist. 

While downstairs Mrs. Wilberforce becomes enchanted with Boccherini's Minuet in E major. 

So this is the set up. The Major, One-Round and Harry, are Professor Marcus's regular gang, Louie is the outside "hooligan" who The Major recruited. A five way split. 

Marcus has the reputation of being "The Brain" a very successful underworld operator. He meticulously times and plans out his heists to the last detail. This last detail gets serious discussion with Louie  arguing against it.

Again the sequence blow in original color....

And the way it appeared on broadcast TV 

However, it's because of this last detail that the whole plan all goes Noirsville right at the get go. The  "Brain's" plan which is actually quite faultless, all hinges on the innocent cooperation of Mrs. Wilberforce the gangs "6th" member. 

They put the inclusion of Mrs. Wilberforce to a vote. Marcus and Courtney agree, only Louie and Harry vote no. It's a tie with One-Round the deciding vote.  

When Louie complains that, great, now its basically all up to a moron, that gets One-Round worked up and he votes with Marcus and Courtney.

Little do they know that their "ace in the hole" their "6th" member, Mrs. Wilberforce is not only their femme fatale but also the reincarnation of goddess Eris /Discordia, with a carillon tune and also a music box playing Boccherini's Minuet in E major as her leitmotifs.

Noirsville   

Frankie Howerd as the barrow boy

This film really works. It's a picaresque type of Black Comedy story, that is directed, shot, and edited with a Noir Visual Style that phototropic-ly stimulates that story, these sets, those performances, and  those locations on all levels. Just look at the screencaps.

Alec Guinness is hilarious. Now supposedly he's actually doing his impersonation of Alistair Sim, who the part, was actually written for. Sim couldn't do it so the mugs we get from Guinness aping Sim are priceless. 

Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom are great and play very much against type if you've only seen them in various the Pink Panther films. If you get a chance check out Sellers in Never Let Go. Robert Warner slips easily into his part as the chief bogey, Danny Green is entertaining as dim witted One-Round, Cecil Parker is quite believable as the Major, while Katie Johnson as Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce is perfection. 10/10