This is an old but great movie--I watched it while I was unexpectedly hospitalized for high blood pressure recently and it really made me laugh under difficult circumstances.
It is a black comedy, British style, but one of the finest kinds--one that takes a base urge that all people have, make it the protagonist's flaw, and then watch as his plot unfolds, slowly but surely coming closer to fruition, only to be foiled by an unforeseen glitch at the end. Or in this case, two problems, one that he is innocent of, and one of his own making. We cannot help but root for him, which is the wrong thing to do, undoubtedly, but we cannot help ourselves.
The problem is the D'Ascoyne family. They have excommunicated our hero and his mother, and they are to pay for this effrontery. Louis vows to avenge his mother, and take the Dukedom. The trouble is that twelve people stand in his way. Alec Guiness aptly plays eight of them, each of whom falls, one by one. In the meantime, Louis is getting a little of his own revenge on a woman who tossed him over for someone with more money, and that little scheme is the one that does him in.
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