Line #31 Film/TheLadykillers1955


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_ladykillers_1955.jpeg]]
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3	''The Ladykillers'' is a 1955 British BlackComedy film from Creator/EalingStudios, about a gang of London criminals who, pretending to be classical musicians, rent a room from Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) in her lopsided house that sits above a railway tunnel.
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5	The gang -- consisting of "Professor" Marcus (Creator/AlecGuinness), "Major" Claude Courtney (Creator/CecilParker), Louis Harvey (Creator/HerbertLom), Harry Robinson (Creator/PeterSellers), and "One-Round" Lawson (Danny Green) -- plan to commit a payroll robbery and use the house as a base, which proves harder than they think with Mrs. Wilberforce around.
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7	A [[ScreenToStageAdaptation stage version]] premiered in England in 2012 based on the original, edited by Graham Linehan of ''Series/BlackBooks'' and ''Series/FatherTed''. It received extremely positive reviews and featured an AllStarCast, with [[Creator/PeterCapaldi Peter Capaldi]] as Marcus and Ben Miller as [[FunnyForeigner Louis]].
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9	Remade by Creator/TheCoenBrothers [[Film/TheLadykillers2004 in 2004]].
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11	----
12	!!This film provides examples of:
13	* AccidentalTruth: Professor Marcus claims that if Mrs. Wilberforce went to the police they wouldn't want the money back. They don't, but not for the reasons he claimed.
14	* AffablyEvil:
15	** Professor Marcus, arguably.
16	** Major Courtney is one of the politer thieves. When he draws the short straw to kill Mr. Wilberforce, he instead decides to ScrewThisImOuttaHere (albeit while taking the money with him).
17	** One-Round is fairly gruff, but not really malicious, and he has a clear set of principles.
18	* AllForNothing: After the decision to murder Mrs. Wilberforce results in the gang all murdering each other, she gets to the police station at last... and they don't believe a word of her story anyway, as they've had their time wasted by her before.
19	* AnyoneCanDie: By the end of the film, the old lady is the last person standing.
20	* ARareSentence: "Give the parrot his medicine!"
21	* ArmedBlag: The gang hold up an armored van transporting a large quantity of cash.
22	* AxCrazy
23	* BerserkButton:
24	** Professor Marcus tends to flip when called 'crazy'. This is usually accompanied by an over-the-top crescendo of epic proportions from the score, and tell-tale looks of expectant horror on the faces of the gang. Luckily, something usually happens to interrupt Marcus.
25	** Don't call One-Round stupid.
26	*** Or accidentally convince him that [[spoiler: you've killed Mrs Wilberforce]] for that matter.
27	* BewareTheNiceOnes: While ''nice'' is somewhat debatable, Professor Marcus is at least AffablyEvil, and remains laid-back and charming throughout most of the film. [[BerserkButton Then Louis calls him 'crazy']].
28	* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: A mild sort-- the house's foundation has subsided due to bombing during the London Blitz. Pictures never hang right, and it seems to have [[RunningGag screwed up the grandfather clock too.]]
29	* BookEnds: The film both begins and ends with [[spoiler:Mrs Wilberforce visiting a police station and the police not believing a word of what she's saying]].
30	* BritishTeeth: Professor Marcus', which are thankfully not Guinness' natural chompers.
31	* TheCameo: Creator/FrankieHowerd is a barrow boy whose day is inadvertently ruined by Mrs. Wilberforce.
32	* CassandraTruth: When Mrs. Wilberforce tries to return the money, the police just don't believe her and tell her to keep it. It's heavily implied that they have been [[WindmillCrusader led astray]] before by listening to her.
33	* ClassicalMusic: The gang pose as a string quintet.
34	* ClockKing: Professor Marcus has it timed down to the moment how long it will take to do the heist and how long it will take for Mrs. Wilberforce to retrieve the trunk, however, he couldn't plan for Mrs. Wilberforce herself.
35	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Mrs Wilberforce
36	* DeadpanSnarker: Professor Marcus
37	** Harry and Louis have their moments as well.
38	* {{Delinquent\|s}}: Harry's a slangy [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy Teddy Boy.]]
39	* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The [[https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/968/010/696010968.0.x.jpg German]] [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/ab/53/4aab53665fbd16abdebbfaf873e352c4.jpg posters]] for the film, which were done by the artist Heinz Edelmann, who also worked on WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine. (Might qualify as AccidentalNightmareFuel too, with those eyes!)
40	** To a lesser extent, some of the British posters.
41	* DrawingStraws: The gang do this to determine which of them will do away with Mrs. Wilberforce using matchsticks.
42	* DriverOfABlackCab: Mrs. Wilberforce accidentally drives one out of business.
43	* DumbMuscle: One-Round Lawson.
44	* DwindlingParty: The group becomes this while trying to rid of Mrs. Wilberforce, [[spoiler:as they keeping killing each other or dying by fluke accidents.]]
45	* TheEdwardianEra: The good old days for Mrs. Wilberforce.
46	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Although they agree that they have to kill Mrs. Wilberforce, none of them are all that eager to do it themselves. One-Round eventually decides that he doesn't want ''anyone'' to do it [[spoiler:and kills Harry when it looks like he has]].
47	* ExactWords: When Mrs. Wilberforce asks One-Round where he learned to play the cello (which he had only been pretending to play), he truthfully replies that he "just sorta... picked it up".
48	* TheFifties: But in that extremely unglamorous British way.
49	* GentleGiant: "One-Round" Lawson.
50	* GentlemanThief: Major Courtney
51	** To a lesser extent, Professor Marcus as well.
52	* GigglingVillain: After [[spoiler:Major Courtney's]] fall from the roof:
53	-->'''Professor:''' Is he hurt? ''(giggles)''\
54	'''Louis:''' ''(deadpan'') I shouldn't think he felt a thing.
55	* IronicEcho: A form of this occurs when Major Courtney goes up onto the roof chasing after General Gordon the parrot to give him his medicine, and promptly gets kicked in the face and then knocked off the roof, mirroring when he later [[spoiler:falls to his death from the roof after trying to escape with the money when the chimney pot he was holding onto collapses]].
56	* {{Jerkass}}: Louis is irritable, mocking and a PerpetualFrowner even before the robbers find themselves forced to kill someone.
57	* {{Leitmotif}}: Boccherini's Minuet, which the gang pretend to play.
58	* TheLoad: Mrs Wilberforce becomes this to the gang.
59	* LondonGangster: Not the most extreme example, but definitely one of the most eccentric.
60	* MobileShrubbery: The Professor pulls this trick on Louis while trying to sneak up on him on the waste ground between the house and the railroad tracks.
61	* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Being an incredibly annoying and persnickety landlady? Kill the old woman! Obviously there is also the practical reason of the chances of her becoming a witness, but by the point they propose it she has annoyed every single member of the gang.
62	* NeverMessWithGranny: Even grocers and cabbies aren't safe from the unintentional wrath of Mrs. Wilberforce.
63	* NonIndicativeName: The title. While the five do try to kill Mrs. Wilberforce, they fail [[spoiler:and [[SelfDisposingVillain end up dying at each others hands.]]]] They also don't fit into [[TheCasanova the romantic definition.]]
64	* NostalgiaFilter: Mrs. Wilberforce, for TheEdwardianEra.
65	* NotWithTheSafetyOnYouWont: [[spoiler:One-Round holds the Professor and Louis at gunpoint, but the gun fails to fire. After stabbing him, Louis notes that the safety was on.]]
66	* NothingCanStopUsNow: Professor Marcus declares this, and probably seals their fate doing so.
67	* ObviouslyEvil: While some of the other members of the gang, such as the brutish One-Round and the dour, hostile Louis, might raise some red flags, Professor Marcus is on another level entirely -- his first scene features him hinted in silhouette before [[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/films/spark/vintage-classics/professor-marcus.jpg a soft key light shines on his face]], and everything from his demeanour to [[https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/09/30/13/newFile-2.jpg his smile]] oozes derangement and menace. Most people would cross the street to avoid him; Mrs. Wilberforce, batty old lady that he is, invites him in and rents him a room.
68	* PersonOfMassDestruction: Mrs Wilberforce seems to unwittingly bring chaos and disorder to everything and everyone around her.
69	* PetTheDog: One-Round and Mrs. Wilberforce.
70	* PlethoraOfMistakes: The heist itself works perfectly; what happens ''afterward'', on the other hand...
71	* PirateParrot: The late Captain Wilberforce wasn't in the least piratical, but he was a nautical man and this is reflected in the vocabulary of his parrots. "Squawk! Swab the deck!"
72	* {{Recorded Audio Alibi}}: The gangsters pretend to be musicians rehearsing, playing the music on a record player while plotting the heist.
73	* {{Ruthless Foreign Gangster\|s}}: Louis is continental, and is the first one to suggest killing Mrs. Wilberforce outright.
74	* SanitySlippage: Professor Marcus at the end. After his plan has totally gone belly-up, Louis calling him "crazy" for the second time is the last straw.
75	--> '''Professor Marcus:''' You mustn't say things like that Louis because I told you, [[SuddenlyShouting YOU MUSTN'T MAKE ME ANGRY!]]
76	* ScarfOfAsskicking: Professor Marcus is a very subtle example of this trope.
77	* ShoutOut:
78	** The picture of Captain Wilberforce is Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne from ''Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets'', in which all the D'Ascoynes were played by Guiness.
79	** Alec Guiness' performance is essentially aping fellow actor Alastair Sim (best known as [[TheScrooge Scrooge]] in the 1951 film), the role having allegedly been written for Sim in the first place.
80	* ASimplePlan: The more ''complicated'' plan (the theft) goes off without a hitch. The simple plan is killing the annoying old woman in the house.
81	* SlasherSmile: Professor Marcus does several throughout the film.
82	* SmokingIsCool: After all, it is {{the Fifties}}.
83	* SpannerInTheWorks: The old woman, regardless is so annoying that the gang eventually decides to kill her. They all die trying.
84	* StupidCrooks: Even the Professor, the criminal mastermind of the crew, is not really all there in terms of intelligence -- he's just better at using big words and being intellectually fancy.
85	** Although he's [[SanitySlippage more]] [[BerserkButton crazy]] than stupid.
86	* SuddenlyShouting: "Major, Major, Major... [[HypocriticalHumor CALM DOWN]]!"
87	* TakingYouWithMe: When Professor Marcus levers the ladder that Louis is on into the path of an oncoming train, Louis shoots at him while he falls. He misses, but Marcus meets his end shortly anyhow.
88	* ThatSyncingFeeling: Even when only Louis is upstairs and everyone else is busy trying to catch the parrot, the record still sounds like a full quintet is playing; after it starts skipping, Louis takes it off the table, looks at it wistfully for a moment, and shatters it. Mrs. Wilberforce, naturally, is too dotty to ever notice.
89	* TenLittleMurderVictims: Purely by accident.
90	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Mrs. Munsen, though on a smaller scale.
91	** Mrs Wilberforce, as described under PersonOfMassDestruction.
92	* VehicleRoofBodyDisposal: The criminals dispose of the ever-accumulating bodies by dumping them on the freight trains that pass below the boarding house.
93	* WickedCultured: Professor Marcus.
94	* WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong: Professor Marcus outright asks this.
95	* WindmillCrusader: Mrs. Wilberforce, to the point where the police refuse to believe a word she says.

Context Film / TheLadykillers1955