A year after winning the Oscar for Best Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness was back to doing comedy, but with a lot bigger budgets than he was used to. His classic parts in Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Lavendar Hill Mob were done without color for instance, which was a much bigger premium for films in the United Kingdom.
Guinness has not played such a disreputable character as Cully Jimson since playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. Yet even as he's fleecing all around him including his girl friend Kay Walsh and devoted acolyte Mike Morgan, he still retains that likability. You do end up rooting for him even as he pulls some outrageous scams.
Kay Walsh who as David Lean's ex-wife was friends with Guinness and his wife Merula. Lean of course was responsible for Guinness's breakout roles in Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Guinness got her cast in the role of his long suffering girlfriend and owner of a pub.
Sadly young Mike Morgan died right before shooting ended on The Horse's Mouth. Guinness had worked with him previously on Morgan's only other film credit, Barnacle Bill. He gives a nice winsome performance as the young man who just wants to bask in the glow of Guinness's talent and glosses over all the chicanery.
I don't think The Horse's Mouth is as good as Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Lavendar Hill Mob. Still Guinness obviously saw the film as a labor of love and the results do show.
Guinness has not played such a disreputable character as Cully Jimson since playing Fagin in Oliver Twist. Yet even as he's fleecing all around him including his girl friend Kay Walsh and devoted acolyte Mike Morgan, he still retains that likability. You do end up rooting for him even as he pulls some outrageous scams.
Kay Walsh who as David Lean's ex-wife was friends with Guinness and his wife Merula. Lean of course was responsible for Guinness's breakout roles in Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Guinness got her cast in the role of his long suffering girlfriend and owner of a pub.
Sadly young Mike Morgan died right before shooting ended on The Horse's Mouth. Guinness had worked with him previously on Morgan's only other film credit, Barnacle Bill. He gives a nice winsome performance as the young man who just wants to bask in the glow of Guinness's talent and glosses over all the chicanery.
I don't think The Horse's Mouth is as good as Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Lavendar Hill Mob. Still Guinness obviously saw the film as a labor of love and the results do show.