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Guiness Played TEN D'Ascoyne Roles!

posted 19 years ago by kreftoon
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I just purchased the new Criterion DVD and the picture is so clear it allowed me to find 2 OTHER uncredited roles played by Alec Guiness.
Look closely at the fine-art drawing of the first Duke of Chalfont, Lord D'Ascoyne, which is hung on the right hand side of the piano in the Mazzini Parlor. Louis is being told about the family and the portrait of the first Duke is a long-haired (A-la King Charles II) likeness of Alec Guiness!

Later, When Mazzini Sr. is singing at Chalfont Castle (the first time Louis' mother sees him) we see that Dennis Price is also playing the part of his own father. We then see a shot of three people sitting on a couch in the Chalfont Great Hall during that concert. Sitting to the right of Mazzini's mother is......you guessed it.......Alec Guiness portraying an unidentified member of the D'Ascoyne family. We can presume that it is the Duke who disinherits Louis' mother for marrying Mazzini Sr. I had to look twice but it is definitely Guiness sitting there on the couch — falling asleep – during the concert.

So that makes 10 Members of the D'Ascoyne family played by Guiness.
Check out the film and see for yourselves!

[–] pbellema 19 years ago

There is in fact at least one more "role". If you check closely, you will see that the banker also has an ancestral (18th century?) ancestral portrait in his office - a portrait that, of course, also bears a suspicious resemblance to Alec Guinness!
Now, there are two other portraits of the first ancestor - both of them very similar to the etching, and equally Guinnessian. One is the bust in the Church at Chalfont (the dead, as it were, watching over the living); the other is hanging on the walls of the great hall at Chalfont Castle, close to a door (you get the best view of it the first time Louis can catch a glimpse of the duke in the flesh, during a tour of the premises).

That would make 13!