Dennis Price

[DB7]

Too smooth for this harsh world.



By David Thomson (30 November 2003)



I am a month late in this melancholy celebration, but as I conjure up the look on Dennis Price's face I can only believe that lateness would pale beside the marvel of anyone remembering him at all (he died in October 1973). Even now, some of you may wonder who it is I am talking about. This was a supporting actor who died 30 years ago - of cirrhosis, on the island of Guernsey. It sounds like The Goon Show already, and I like to think that Price was some inspiration to those Peter Sellers' characters, to utterly fraudulent upper-class fellows, D'Ascoynes fit for the chopping block.



Let me explain, and let me put up my other topical hook for this piece - the publication in the BFI classic films series of Michael Newton's excellent monograph on Kind Hearts and Coronets. That is a film from 1949, directed and written by Robert Hamer, and alleged to be an Ealing comedy, though it could just as well be one of the more intriguing film noirs of that moment. This is the movie in which an upstart rogue of immense, aristocratic charm, Louis Mazzini, necessarily raised at 73 Balaclava Avenue, Clapham, rises to his merited position as Duke of Chalfont, by murdering every other D'Ascoyne in his way.



In some quaint circles, the film remains famous for Alec Guinness's virtuoso (but rather plain) playing of eight unlucky D'Ascoynes. This is just another wretched sign of Britain's depressing respect for versatility and nobility. For the film is blessed, graced, driven forward and inspired by the immaculate and nearly saintly lethal intelligence of Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini, the Clapham boy who had an unshakable sense of how a gentleman behaves.



Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of the greatest of British films, and Newton does it full credit. But I was especially touched by his asides on Dennis Price, who was just 34 when he played Louis and seemed destined at that moment one day to sit at Lord Attenborough's right hand, if not on it.



"Dennis Price" does seem a name that might have been purchased at Arding & Hobbs, so I'm happy to tell you that his real name (and how I long to hear him say it) was Denniston Franklyn John Rose-Price. He was born in Twyford, Berkshire, the son of a brigadier-general (presumably a man who was arranging the slaughter in Flanders). The boy went to Radley and Worcester College, Oxford, where he tried the stage and was good enough to get a modest West End career, helped along by Noel Coward - Price is certainly in that tradition, though so creamy as to expose the real sourness in Coward. He did his war in the Royal Artillery, and was invalided out - there is always about Price some tremor of the inner wound.



He married (unhappily) and had daughters - I hope they are alive to read this - but was, as they say, incurably romantic about men. It's tricky now to know exactly how that read in 1949, but I think Mazzini's upward thrust (along with his uncertainty whether to possess or be possessed by Joan Greenwood or Valerie Hobson) is always undercut by the man's serene gayness. Indeed, to see the film now is to realise how far Price (with curls and Edwardian costume) is the screen's first ghost of Oscar Wilde, and maybe still the best.



Price had started in films in 1944 with Michael Powell's A Canterbury Tale - Powell saw him on stage and found him "impudently well-mannered". Stardom was predicted. A Rank contract settled on him like fog. But Price was not the swashbuckler that James Mason or Stewart Granger could be. He was, maybe, less persuaded by himself, sadder. More easily cast down. The crisis came when he was cast in The Bad Lord Byron - a promising venture in outline, maybe, but awfully like a raid on Dieppe for which young Lt Price was the man who had to do the dirty work.



And maybe Kind Hearts was alarming. Shouldn't it have provoked street demonstrations in which every English Mazzini overthrew the House of Windsor? Well, no, not yet. Price became a supporting actor, always elegant, yet wasted, abused by casting and not even able to kill himself. Landladies were always rescuing him, though Newton says that after one attempt, he came round, and murmured "What glory, Price?" He was reduced to horror films, to trash, to being Robert Ross as Robert Morley played Oscar Wilde, to observing the over-acting of Vincent Price. He was dead at 58, with over a hundred films to his credit. So treat yourself, see Kind Hearts and Coronets and know that England is a coarse sieve to its own genius.

[Carterh]

I agree. 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' is perhaps the best British film ever made. Much of this is down to an outstanding performance from Dennis Price. He was never cast so well again. Seeing him only a few years later in 'Victim' he had aged dramatically, the softness of youth had completely gone.



C

[Ascoyne D'Ascoyne]

Dennis Price is one of my favourite actors. From the snippets about his life that I have discovered it appears that it was interesting enough to justify a full-length biography. An actress who worked with him told me that he spent his final years in a rented bedsit. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether his hospitalisation prior to his death was due to a fall (Price, it seems, was often inebriated) or to a suicide attempt (he had attempted to end his life mainly because of mounting debts back in the 1950s although it is also possible that he was being blackmailed because of his homosexuality).

Price was married at one time but, it seems, as a result of his gambling, drinking and homosexual adventures was divorced by his wife.

All of this tends to paint the portrait of a rather louche character, but his fellow-actors seem to have regarded him with affection.

Price had two daughters who, if they are still alive, must only be in their early sixties. Does anybody know of their whereabouts?

[Lord Brett]

Don't knopw about Mr Price's children, but I'm not surprised to read of his sad decline, as it is plain to see in many of his later film roles.



To pick just two, he is not only miscast in Hammer's Horror of Frankenstein (1970), but appears to be struggling with his dialogue. It is heartbreaking to see him tottering around in Jess Franco's early 1970s Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein. He looks deathly ill, and isn't even given any dialogue.



A sad epitaph to the career of a superb actor. As a Wodehouse fan I'd love to have the chance to see him in The World of Wooster.

[Jim]

I AGREE WITH YOU LORD BRETT, OLD DENNIS WAS A MUCH UNDER-USED ACTOR LATER ON IN HIS CAREER.



NOW THIS IS WHERE MEMORY MAY PLAY A FEW TRICKS - WAS HE IN A FILM ABOUT A HOLIDAY CAMP, AND DID 'THE HUGGETS' APPEAR AS WELL? WITH KATHLEEN HARRISON AND JACK WARNER AS 'THE HUGGETS'.



I THINK I REMEMBER OUR DENNIS STRANGLING ESMA CANNON AS WELL! WAS IT CALLED 'HOLIDAY CAMP'?



IF ONLY THEY SOLD MEMORY PILLS!!!

[Marky B]

"If only they sold memory pills". You can buy them,but I can't remember where.

Both Dennis Price and Esma Cannon were both in "Holiday Camp".

Was that the one where Dennis Price was smuggling diamonds in an ice tray?

Ta Ta

Marky B

[hoggers]

He played a serial killer in Holiday Camp. Although, in those rather more gentile days he'd probably have been credited in the titles as a 'Rogue' or 'Bounder'. I think Holiday Camp was a prelude to the Huggett series. It was actually co-written by Peter Rogers, the producer of the Carry On's. Now there's a totally useless bit of trivia!

[Jim]

THANK TO MARKYB AND FILM FAN FOR FILLING THE GAPS ON HOLIDAY CAMP - SORTED!

[Marky B]

You're welcome!

Ta Ta

Marky B

[plasticjock]

Hi, just got back from the foyer with my packet of Poppets when I saw this thread.

If I remember correctly, Dennis Price played a character based on Neville Heath, a post-war serial killer hanged in 1946, who unsuccessfully tried to pick up one of the Huggett's daughters and instead picked up and murdered sad Esma Cannon instead.

Toodle-pip!

[Ascoyne D'Ascoyne]

I believe the chief author of the "Holiday Camp" script was Godfrey Winn; those of "a certain age" will remember him. Esma Cannon was definitely of "a certain age" when she played the young woman out for a good time in the film. Even more ridiculously she was over 50 when she played the part of a girl barely out of her teens in "Jassy"!

I've just watched a video copy of "The Intruder" (1953). An engrossing screenplay and a stalwart British cast which includes Michael Medwin, Jack Hawkins, George Cole, Arthur Howard, Dora Bryan and Dennis Price at his most despicable makes this well-worth seeking out.

[Sconesandjam]

I liked Dennis Price as a serial killer in Kind Hearts and Coronets. He was very, very good!

[smudge]

I think Holiday Camp was a prelude to the Huggett series.

Spot on Hoggers - it was indeed the film that introduced the Huggetts.



SMUDGE

[stevie boy]

Having seen him recently in A Canterbury Tale & Holiday Camp, I must view Kind Hearts again. Yes it would seem that his talent soared high for a brief time and then plunged dramatically. His later films are sad to see. The demon drink has a lot to answer for.

[John Llewellyn Moxey]

Dennis...Hard to forget.



John Llewellyn

[dremble wedge]

Dennis Price is one of my favourite actors and it's a tragedy that he is not better known (although of course he's amongst friends in this forum).



His work in Kind Hearts and Coronets was outstanding but other delights in his CV that I've particulary enjoyed include his drunk gambling aristo in Jassy, his drama-loving POW who is slightly peeved by the escape shenanigans in Danger Within, his delightful Educated Ernest in The Wrong Arm of the Law and even his dissolute poet in The Bad Lord Byron which may have been somewhat overwrought but was still thoroughly enjoyable.



I also love that P G Wodehouse commented on Price's turn in The World of Wooster that he was 'born to play the part' of Jeeves.

[Windthrop]

The common wisdom always seems to be that he ended up in feeble films through the drink and personal problems. However even in his last years there was worthwhile work being done - Theatre of Blood and Pulp standout with nice supports from Price. The real turkeys were the Jess Franco movies he turned up in but then the likes of Herbert Lom, Christopher Lee et al were happy to appear in them as well. I notice looking at his CV that he turned up in a TV version of Hay Fever with Celia Johnson and a star studded cast - that would be worth seeing. It is a pity Mr Huntley couldn't get his well-researched book published. That would have been an event. If we could all push together to help him in some - it can't be impossible.

[torinfan]

I think the first time I saw Dennis was in "Five Golden Hours", with Cyd Charisse and Ernie Kovacs. Good actor.

[stevie boy]

I think the first time I saw Dennis was in "Five Golden Hours", with Cyd Charisse and Ernie Kovacs. Good actor.

Ernie Kovacs was another who shone brightly,briefly. It was not the booze but a car crash that got him, sad early loss.

[Harbottle]

Yes I always enjoy seeing Dennis Price appear in anything and KH&C is one of my favourite films. His decline was sad in no small part to the sauce of course, I recall him making very brief appearances in a few films when he deserved so much more.