The Lavender Hill Mob Review

• 26th Jul 2011

The Lavender Hill Mob is the archetypal Ealing comedy: it was produced by Michael Balcon, directed by Charles Crichton, written by T.E.B. Clarke and starred the indefatigable Alec Guinness. Clarke had originally planned to write a sequel to the classic semi-documentary crime movie The Blue Lamp (1949) but instead he decided to write a comedy and approached the Bank of England and asked them if they could come up with the perfect idea of a heist and what you see in the film were the ideas that Bank came up with. Guinness stars as a Mr. Holland, a meek and mild mannered bank clerk with 20 years of loyal banking service under his belt who transfers gold bullion from the foundry to the bank vaults. However, he dreams of a more adventurous life. He meets and befriends a maker of cast lead souvenirs, a Mr. Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) who also dreams of new adventures. Between them they hatch a plot to rob the gold bullion with the aid of two petty criminals (Sid James and Alfie Bass) and melt it down into Eifel Tower souvenirs to be exported to Paris where they can retrieve their booty and live the high life. The theft itself is relatively easy, but the fencing and moving the gold is more difficult than they had accounted for and this is where the caper really takes off involving set-ups, school girls mistakenly buying the Eifel Tower souvenirs on a trip to Paris and a finale police chase. All of this is compressed into less than 80 minutes, demonstrating what a perfectly crafted comedy this is.

But it is the chemistry between Guinness and Holloway that really makes the film work so well, blending themselves in amongst the typical Ealing charm and, dare I say it, a little England naivety all combining to make for a winning combination. Guinness once again plays the schnook with some ingenious ideas that are all let down by others and circumstance. He would play this sort of character many times over in such films as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Ladykillers (1955), Barnacle Bill (1957) and Our Man in Havana (1959). Early on in the film Guinness and Holloway’s characters refer to each other as Mr. Pendlebury and Mr. Holland, but as they drift further into crime they refer to each other in the more gangster language with such nicknames as Dutch and Al. But it is not just Guinness and Holloway who carry the film, but also the indomitable talents of Crichton and Clarke who execute an exciting police chase during the films climactic chase sequence or the pursuit of the school girls around the Eifel Tower in Paris to retrieve their booty. This is not a dated classic but very much a film worthy of repeated viewing; not only is it re-released on DVD, but its limited release at cinemas is also testimony to this. The Lavender Hill Mob is also well known for being the first film appearance of Audrey Hepburn. The story goes that Guinness had been impressed by Hepburn on stage and wanted a bigger part for her in the film, but she was at the time committed to a stage production. Never the less the small screen time she has at the beginning of the film has a presence that is vintage Hepburn.

Released by Optimum in their ongoing re-packaging and re-releasing of Ealing films on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as a limited big screen release on its 60th anniversary, this special edition also includes such extras as a behind the screen stills gallery, an introduction by Martin Scorsese and an interview with T.E.B. Clarke among other featurettes.

Chris Hick