Mrs Wilberforce is a sweet and eccentric old widow who lives alone in a gradually subsiding house, built over the entrance to a railway tunnel in Kings Cross, London. With nothing to occupy her time and an active imagination, she is a frequent visitor to the local police station where she reports fanciful suspicions regarding neighbourhood activities. The officers there humour her but give her reports no credence whatsoever.
She is approached by a sly and sinister character, "Professor" Marcus, who wants to rent rooms in her house. Mrs Wilberforce is not aware that Marcus has assembled a gang of hardened criminals for a sophisticated security van robbery at the nearby railway station, who plan to use Mrs. Wilberforce's house as a base of operations. The gang includes the jittery and gentlemanly con-man Major Courtney, the Cockneyspiv Harry Robinson, the punch-drunk ex-boxer 'One-Round' Lawson and the cruel and vicious continental gangster Louis Harvey. As a cover, Marcus convinces the naive Mrs. Wilberforce that the group is an amateur string quintet using the rooms for rehearsal space. To maintain the deception, the gang members carry musical instruments and play recordings of Boccherini and Haydn during their planning sessions.
The criminals successfully carry out the heist, and trick Mrs. Wilberforce into retrieving the disguised money from the railway station herself. As the gang departs her house with the loot, One-Round accidentally gets his cello case full of banknotes trapped in the front door. As he pulls the case free, banknotes spill forth while Mrs. Wilberforce looks on. After she learns from a visiting friend that a robbery has taken place nearby, Mrs. Wilberforce finally sees the gang's true colours and informs Marcus that she is going to the police.
Stalling, the gangsters try to convince Mrs. Wilberforce that she will be considered an accomplice for holding the cash. Marcus asserts that the heist was a victimless crime as insurance will cover all the losses and the police will probably not even accept the money back. Mrs Wilberforce wavers but eventually rallies, and the criminals decide they must kill her. No one wants to do it, so they draw lots using matchsticks. The Major loses but tries to make a run for it with the cash.
While Mrs. Wilberforce dozes, the criminals double-cross each other and end up killing one another in rapid succession. The Major falls off the roof of the house after being chased by Louis, Harry attempts to escape with the money but is killed by One-Round, and One-Round is killed by Louis after he leaves his gun's safety catch on and fails to shoot Louis and Marcus. Marcus kills Louis by luring him down a ladder by the bridge overlooking the railway and dislodging it, causing Louis to fall into a passing railway wagon. Before falling into the carriage, Louis fires a last shot at Marcus which nearly hits him. Within moments, Marcus himself is struck on the head by a changing railway signal, and his body drops into another wagon. All the other bodies have been dumped into railway wagons passing behind the house and are now far away.
Mrs. Wilberforce is now left alone with the plunder. She goes to the police, but they do not believe her story. They humour her, telling her to "keep the money". She is puzzled but finally relents and returns home. Along the way, she leaves a banknote of large denomination with a perplexed starving artist.
Cast
Katie Johnson with (l to r) Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Alec Guinness and Danny Green
Alec Guinness is thought to have based his performance of Professor Marcus on the actor Alastair Sim, for whom the part was originally intended; although critic Philip French wrote in 2015 that "there’s another possible source for the appearance of Marcus, with his prominent teeth and pale, cadaverous features, and that is the self-publicising critic and man of the theatre Kenneth Tynan, who had written a monograph on Guinness and been an assistant on the disastrous 1951 Festival of Britain production of Hamlet starring Guinness."[3]
Robinson was the first major film role for Peter Sellers; he would later appear with Lom in five of The Pink Panther films.
Sellers and Guinness would appear together again in Murder By Death (1976).[4]
"When Alec, as the Professor, is killed by a railway signal falling onto his head, the production crew made sure that this would not in fact happen by placing a metal pin half an inch above the level of Alec's head. Lines were drawn in chalk to mark where he should stand for the shot. When it came to the take, however, the signal sheared the metal pin and tore the back of Alec's jacket. He had been standing an inch or two in front of the chalk mark – a mistake that saved his life."[6][7] – Piers Paul Read
William Rose left the production midway, following arguments with director Alexander Mackendrick and associate producer Seth Holt, leaving them to complete the script from his notes.[8]
The film received critical acclaim from critics. On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rare approval rating of 100% based on 31 reviews, with an average score of 8.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "The Ladykillers is a macabre slow-burn with quirky performances of even quirkier characters."[10] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 91 based on 7 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[11]
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Ladykillers the 36th greatest comedy film of all time, and The Guardian labelled it the 5th greatest comedy of all time in 2010.
In 1966, the film was adapted into an opera by the Czech composer Ilja Hurník under the name The Lady and the Robbers (Dáma a lupiči), which was premiered in Brno in October 1973.[13]
In 1969, the film was adapted into Egyptian film "Thieves But Funny" (original name: لصوص ولكن ظرفاء) starring Ahmed Mazhar and Adel Emam.[14]
In 2013, the play was revived at the London Vaudeville Theatre[19] and subsequently toured the UK and Ireland.[20] This revived production featured a new cast.[21]
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