Alexander MackendrickCast
Alec Guinness Katie Johnson 
Peter Sellers
Credits
Written by: William Rose
Plot
A gang of criminals led by the sinister Professor Marcus rent rooms from the sweet, elderly Mrs Wilberforce and pretend to be a string quintet, using their rehearsals as cover for planning a robbery. After the robbery, the sweet old lady finds out and they decide that she must be killed, but she turns out to be harder to remove than expected. Alexander Mackendrick's 1955 Ealing comedy, with Alec Guinness and Katie Johnson, is a black comedy that grows more outrageous scene by scene.
Sinekatalog’s take
Alexander Mackendrick's Ealing comedy sets a gang of crooks against a sweet old lady. Alec Guinness is wonderfully sinister, and the film's dark wit and clockwork plotting still delight.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.
Ratings
IMDb: 7.6 / 10 (34,613 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.
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