The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Directed by Charles Crichton

Film Review

A classic of British cinema, The Lavender Hill Mob is one of a series of enormously popular comedies that came out of Ealing Studios in the 1950s - others include Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955).  It is a slick, well-paced parody of the caper movie, combining imaginative direction, a sublime script and some magnificent comic performances.   Like many of Ealing's comedies, its portrayal of English life in the 1950s is quaint yet well-observed, and at times subtly subversive, taking in punctilious elderly landladies, excruciatingly dim policemen and sympathetic crooks, as well as the usual tongue-in-cheek references to the vagaries of the British class system.

The film brings together four of Britain's best-loved performers: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James and Alfie Bass.  Of these, Guiness had the most distinguished career, on stage and screen, ranging from Shakespeare to popular comedy to his most famous role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars films.  Guiness was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his role in this film, but lost out to Gary Cooper (who won with High Noon).  After this, his first major film role, Sid James would soon become a household name for his work on Tony Hancock's BBC radio show and his association with the long-running series of Carry On films.   The film has one other very notable credit: Audrey Hepburn appears briefly in the opening scene, as a small girl - it was her first role in a major film.

What makes The Lavender Hill Mob such a memorable and enduring film is, above all else, its excellent screenplay, written by Tibby Clarke, one of Ealing's foremost screenwriters.  This was the second of three successful collaborations between Clarke and director Charles Crichton - the others being Hue and Cry (1947)  and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953).  Clarke won an Oscar in 1952 for his work on this film.

With such a great screenplay in his back pocket, Charles Crichton could hardly fail to deliver a first rate comedy.  As it turned out, Crichton went the extra mile (or two) and squeezed every last drop of comedy from the script.  His classy direction gives us some moments of sheer genius.  First there is the dizzying chase down the Eiffel Tower, which has a distinctly Hitchcockian feel to it, as well as bring utterly hilarious.  Then there is the madcap sequence at the ferry port, where two Brits fail, despite their best efforts, to get past the assembled might of French officialdom at its worst (that's one joke that will never go out of fashion).  To round it off, there is a spectacular car chase at the end of the film, a brilliant parody of a similar sequence in another classic British film, The Blue Lamp (1950).

Plans are afoot for a remake of The Lavender Hill Mob, directed by Dean Parisot and scheduled for release in 2009.   No matter how good this film is (and, to be fair, it may well turn out to be a blinder), we can be pretty confident that it will not be as great or as loved as the original film.   The version with Alec Guiness and Stanley Holloway is, quite simply, inimitable and, unlike so many British comedies of its time, it continues to be an immensely enjoyable romp, for all age groups, right across the world.

Film Synopsis

For twenty years, Henry Holland has been an unassuming bank employee overseeing the delivery of gold bullion.  Although he has a reputation for scrupulous honesty, he has been secretly concocting a plan to steal the gold so he can enjoy a comfortable retirement.  The only unsolved problem is how to smuggle the gold out of the country once it has been stolen.  He finds the perfect solution when he meets Alfred Pendlebury, a manufacturer of tourist trinkets.  With the help of two small-time crooks, Lackery and Shorty, Holland and Pendlebury steal a consignment of gold bullion, melt it down and recast it in the shape of paperweight models of the Eiffel Tower.  They have no difficulty shipping the gold to France, but when he arrives in Paris to oversee the last stage of the operation, Holland finds that six of the Eiffel Tower models have been sold by mistake - to a party of English schoolgirls...