Heralded by Peter Ustinov as “the outstanding poet of anonymity” for his virtuosic ability to disappear into a role, British cinema icon Alec Guinness was the ultimate example of character actor as movie star, renowned for his nuanced, fully inhabited performances and dazzling range. Beginning his film career under the direction of David Lean in the acclaimed Dickens adaptations GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST, Guinness was soon launched to international stardom with his brilliant turns in a run of beloved Ealing comedies: the delightful crime caper THE LAVENDER HILL MOB; the razor-sharp satire THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT; and the wickedly funny KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, which contains no fewer than nine quintessential Guinness performances. His extraordinary adaptability and chameleonic genius is on full display in this extensive career survey, which also includes Carol Reed’s classic espionage satire OUR MAN IN HAVANA and rarities such as THE SCAPEGOAT and THE PRISONER.
Directed by David Lean • 1946 • United Kingdom
One of the great translations of literature into film, David Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS brings Charles Dickens's masterpiece to robust on-screen life. Pip, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, and Estella populate Lean's magnificent miniature, beautifully photog...
Directed by David Lean • 1948 • United Kingdom
Expressionistic noir photography suffuses David Lean's OLIVER TWIST with a nightmarish quality, fitting its bleak, industrial setting. In Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a tru...
Directed by Robert Hamer • 1949 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson
Director Robert Hamer’s fiendishly funny KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS stands as one of Ealing Studios’ greatest triumphs, and one of the most wickedly hilarious black comedies ever made. Dennis P...
Directed by Henry Cass • 1950 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Beatrice Campbell
Told by his doctor he has no more than a few months to live, drab British workingman George Bird (Alec Guinness) decides to spend his savings on lodging at a seaside resort. Once there, however, he finds his...
Directed by Charles Crichton • 1951 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James
Alec Guinness is a prim and respectable bank clerk who organizes a gang to steal gold bullion and smuggle it out of the country as Eiffel Tower souvenir paperweights. Delightful acting,...
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick • 1951 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker
A young laboratory assistant in a textile mill infuriates management and labor when he invents an indestructible, stain-resistant fabric and tries to put it on the market. One of the...
Directed by Ronald Neame • 1952 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns
Alec Guinness and Glynis Johns are at their best in THE CARD, a story of an enterprising young man determined to succeed in a hard, cruel world. In the course of his upward climb, he meets an equally sharp-w...
Directed by Anthony Kimmins • 1953 • United Kingdom
Starring Alec Guinness, Yvonne De Carlo, Celia Johnson
Alec Guinness is at his peerless best in this frothy, soufflé-light comedy. He stars as Captain Henry St. James, a ship’s captain bouncing between ports in Gibraltar and North Africa and...
Directed by Ronald Neame • 1958 • United Kingdom
In Ronald Neame's film of Joyce Cary's classic novel, Alec Guinness transforms himself into one of cinema's most indelible comic figures: the lovably scruffy painter Gulley Jimson. As the ill-behaved Jimson searches for a perfect canvas, he dete...
Directed by Ronald Neame • 1960 • United Kingdom
In Ronald Neame's Tunes of Glory, the incomparable Alec Guinness inhabits the role of Jock Sinclair, a whiskey-drinking, up-by-the-bootstraps commanding officer of a peacetime Scottish battalion. Sinclair is a lifetime military man, who expects ...
