The penniless grandson of a duke plots to eliminate the eight relatives standing between him and a vast inheritance. He shoots, drowns, poisons and explodes his way through his family tree, but his final triumph is ruined when his lady love's husband kills himself. Ealing black comedy, starring Alec Guinness as all eight potential victims, with Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood.

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.