The Ladykillers · Quick

A gangster with a cleaning fetish manages to hide a full-sized mop about his person.

The genius of the film lies in the friction between the criminals' desperate, professional plans and Mrs. Wilberforce’s bustling, domestic normalcy.

If you love dark comedies, clever writing, and the "most English" of films, The Ladykillers is required viewing. It’s a polite reminder that sometimes, the sweetest people are the deadliest. the 2004 Coen Brothers remake? The Ladykillers

, including Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers? More trivia about the Ealing Studios productions? Let me know what interests you most!

While the 2004 Coen Brothers remake has its fans, it never quite captures the surreal, claustrophobic brilliance of the original. The original is a "tragedy in slow motion" masked as a farce. A gangster with a cleaning fetish manages to

The plot is wonderfully absurd: Professor Marcus (played with manic energy by Alec Guinness) puts together a gang of diverse criminals to pull off a bank heist. To do so, they take rooms in a lopsided, dreamy house near King’s Cross station in London, pretending to be an amateur string quintet practicing classical music.

The irony is the core: these dangerous men are not defeated by the police, but by their own squeamishness regarding a harmless old woman and their inability to work together. If you love dark comedies, clever writing, and

The only thing standing in their way? Their landlady, the sweet, elderly, and entirely-too-innocent Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson). The Perfect "Ealing" Chaos