Five criminals rent rooms from a sweet old lady and plan a robbery — and Alec Guinness, as their sinister professor, leads them all gently towards disaster.
Released in 1955, The Ladykillers is an Ealing comedy in which Guinness plays Professor Marcus, the polite, buck-toothed mastermind who rents rooms from Mrs Wilberforce, played by Katie Johnson, on the pretence that his friends are a string quintet. In reality, they are planning a train robbery.
The comedy grows darker and darker as the plan succeeds and the gang begins to fall apart, unable to agree on what to do about the one witness they never expected: their landlady herself. Guinness is superb as the courteous villain, all manners and menace, whose control slips only when confronted by genuine innocence.
It is a signature role because it shows the other side of his quiet man: the charm that can hide real danger, and the comedy that comes from watching a perfect plan unravel in the presence of a very good person.