Synopsis

A cultured Southern professor assembles a mismatched gang to rob a riverboat casino. Posing as a chamber ensemble, the criminals rent a cellar from a seemingly harmless widow and tunnel toward the target. Their carefully arranged scheme begins to unravel when the landlady discovers the truth, forcing the increasingly desperate thieves to deal with an unexpected obstacle they had never planned for.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is a modern remake of the 1955 British Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, relocating the story from London to the American South.

• It was the first remake made by the Coen brothers and the first of their films to give both brothers shared directing and producing credits.

• Tom Hanks deliberately avoided watching the 1955 original before filming so that his performance would not be influenced by the earlier version.

• The Boccherini Minuet serves as a deliberate musical link to the original film, where it was repeatedly played to make a group of criminals appear to be rehearsing.

• Guitar maker Danny Ferrington recreated the unusual period instruments used by the fictional musical group. The so-called triple guitar is a harpolyre, an instrument that did not exist during the Renaissance period suggested by the characters.

• Principal photography took place in Natchez, Mississippi, with additional work at Universal Studios in California. New Deal Studios created miniature work for the garbage barge and garbage island sequences.

• The animal performers were monitored under the American Humane Association's "No Animals Were Harmed" program.