The quintet of death

The Quintet of Death (The Ladykillers) is a 1955 British film directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starring Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Danny Green and Katie Johnson.

Plot

A gang of thieves, consisting of Mayor Courtney (Cecil Parker), Louis Harvey (Herbert Lom), Harry Robinson (Peter Sellers) and "One-Round" Lawson (Danny Green), plus Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness), who is the boss, meet regularly in a room they have rented from an old lady, Mrs. Luisa Alexandra Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), whose house is built on the the entrance to a railway tunnel in King's Cross, London. There, the criminals make believe that they are a quintet of musicians rehearsing for a concert thanks to a record player that covers up the noise of what they are actually doing: planning their next hit.

When they pull off the heist, everything goes according to plan. They even manage to trick Mrs. Wilberforce into recovering the trunk with the money, hidden in a carriage of a train that has just arrived at the station. However, from this moment the situation begins to get complicated. The old lady is about to ruin the plan when she gets involved in an altercation that lands her and her money at the police station. But later a couple of agents move the trunk to the old woman's house without any problem.

With the money already recovered and hidden in the cases of their instruments, the thieves begin to leave the house. When they finally get ready to leave, One Round's cello case gets caught in the door and all the bills fall to the floor under the gaze of the old woman, who ends up realizing the true identity of the men. The gang decides to kill the old woman so she can't report them, but they find it difficult to accomplish this goal. None of them want to be the one to carry out the murder, so they draw lots. Mayor Courtney is the one who loses and tries to flee with the money before having to murder the lady, but Louis kills him. One Round thinks that Harry has murdered the old woman and ends the life of her sidekick, after siding with Mrs. Wilberforce. One Round attempts to shoot Louis and Marcus after hearing about a plan to kill him, but is ultimately killed by Louis. The two remaining members end up killing each other under the train tunnel that was next to their house. Both bodies, along with the rest of the gang, fall into different wagons of a freight train that passes by.

The next day the old woman tells everything that happened to the police. But they don't believe her and, humoring her to get her to leave, they suggest that she keep her money. Mrs. Wilberforce agrees and, shocked, she returns home.

Cast

• Alec Guinness: Professor Marcus.
• Cecil Parker: "alcalde" Claude Courtney.
• Herbert Lom: Louis Harvey.
• Peter Sellers: Harry Robinson.
• Danny Green: One-Round Lawson.
• Katie Johnson: Mrs. Louisa Alexandra Wilberforce.
• Jack Warner: Police Chief.
• Philip Stainton: Police sergeant.

Uncredited

• Frankie Howerd: the truck boy.
• Phoebe Hodgson: Constance.
• Helene Buris: Appolonia.
• Evelyn Kerry: Amelia.
• Edie Martin: Lettice.
• Kenneth Connor: the taxi driver.
• Harold Goodwin: the secretary of the railway package service.
• Fred Griffiths: the chatter.
• Lucy Griffiths: Miss Pringle.
• Vicente Holman: the station chief.
• Stratford Johns: the security guard.
• Jack Melford: The detective.
• Leonard Sharp: the pavement artist.

Production

Locations

One of the first important decisions that is made and that affects pre-production is that of spaces. The characters they create are caricatures that must be exaggerated, but with the mixture of real people they lost the credibility with which they had been created, so they tried to limit filming outdoors at all times so that it did not have a negative effect. The space chosen for the development of the action was a typical British house with a garden at the entrance and walls with flowers and crooked paintings; To carry out the exterior plans of the house, a life-size plastic house was built. The prominent spaces where the characters develop are the house, the upper and lower part, and the police station.

Hearing

The choice of male characters was quick; however, the choice of the actress who had to represent the old woman of the house was quite a challenge. At first it was thought of having a seventy-seven-year-old actress, Katie Johnson, who had starred in supporting roles in other films, but they considered that she was too old to face the shooting. They preferred a young actress to later characterize her as an old woman; a few days before filming began, the young woman died of respiratory problems, so Katie Johnson became the protagonist.

Dialogues

In the film, the script by Clifford Odets was used, who was in charge of rewriting practically all the dialogues, since he wanted more complex sequences in which there was an interaction of all the characters. Irony, sarcasm and puns abound in the dialogues.

Symmetry

In the film you can see two parts: the first part shows the preparations for the robbery and its subsequent achievement, and the second part refers to the complications that arise and how the lives of the characters change, as well as the goal they originally had. There is a great transformation in the story, it goes from a fun chase to harassment between the characters, where a clear symmetry is seen in many of the scenes. Like the end with the beginning of the film, the sequences are reproduced but in reverse, thus showing a circular structure.

Criticism

Critics, on the one hand, praised the work done by the actors. But, on the other hand, they highlighted the first part above the second, what happened after the robbery. As with The Man Dressed in White, by the same director, critics were not in favor of such a black ending. The numerous and violent deaths that occur in this part were described, in many cases, in bad taste even though none of them appeared on the plane.

Awards and nominations

Accommodations

In 1966, the film was adapted for opera by the Czech composer Ilja Hurník under the title The Lady and the Thieves.

A radio adaptation of the film was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on January 13, 1996, featuring the voice actors Edward Petherbridge and Margot Boyd.

In 2004, the Coen brothers directed an adaptation of the same title: The Ladykillers, starring Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J. K. Simmons, Tzi Ma and Ryan Hurst. For the new version, the action of the story told in the film was moved from London to Saucier, Mississippi.

In 2011, the film was adapted as a play by Graham Linehan. It opened at the Liverpool theater in November of that year, before transferring to London's Gielgud Theatre.

A new film adaptation arrived at the London Vaudeville Theater on its 2013 summer tour throughout the UK and Ireland. A large part of the cast was changed for this new season.