Ladykillers

The LadyKillers, Alexander Mackendrick,

“Your naughty, I ccan’tsee your dangle with thoset-shirtss there”

It was a few hours ago. This morning I had gone over to buy some clothes and found myself in that interminable hell known as browsing. A small petite woman, with white hand air, and a hint of dick emery about was was making comments on my genitals. At first, I ignored her as a harmless innuendo. Tried to tone it down. But ultimately with nowhere else to go without escalating the situation, she was quite predatory with her friend. She smacked my bum. I felt indignant, it was all just lewd. I’d probably be more inclined to laugh her off in Wetherspoons, but it was a bright Sunday morning and it showed how powerless one like myself can be with an old woman. There is no way to confront them, to reason, or to negotiate. And they absolutely will not stop.

Which brings me to Mrs. Wilberfoce. I’m sure you have seen lady killer before. Heards the stories. How Herbert Lom is like harry lime. The expressionist tendencies, the nanny mafia that intervenes. The way the colour and the angles or Mrs. Lopsided, doesn’t change the fact that her innocence is straight from the heart. Our ensemble of villains pulls off a remarkable heist in 15 minutes of the film in a session that can take up oceans of ast and padded plotting these days.

I have not watched it in a cinema in decades. And touch it with such a grateful audience though. To share those laughs. Was quite an experience.

And on-screen with the music enveloping you as fake as the walls of the house. You can’t help but see how Alec Guinness is truly the man who laughs throughout. The roles of cowardly colonel the street-wise peter sellers and the kind-hearted soul of one round. There is still a great deal of genuine crime and drama. It’s a level of American werewolf in London. The absurdities of slapstick never seem that out of place in this world. The whole ensemble with Frankie Howard lives the sense of London characters. The darkest and grimmest aspect, the drawing of matches and genuine tension doesn’t change the fact that the final act is a Whitehall farce writ large. Preceded by errant parrots and broken furniture.

The Deus ex mechanic at the end does make one wonder if the idea is that such an utterly innocent good as Mrs. Wilberforce will always have higher powers, and it is not the ruthless cunning, force, guile, or menace of the leads that kills them

Its compassion. And maybe a little less of that. Would have seen this morning’s lady, over the years be a bit more appropriate in her way with strangers. But then…maybe that is hiding the darkness that is there.

I am a bruised bum and pride…I walk away. But I don’t know the home she gets to live in, she relies on the other guy to give a lift when he can, he’s a gentleman like that. And lonely souls need looking out for. Like Mrs.Wilberforce and letchy Anne of the dairy section

Bless them all.