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The Lavender Hill Mob | Year: 1951 Classification: Comedy Directed: - Charles Crichton Actors/Actresses: - Audrey Hepburn - Desmond Llewelyn - Robert Shaw - Alec Guinness Alec Guinness decides to steal some Bank of England gold "The Lavender Hill Mob" is the brainchild of Henry Holland (Alec Guinness), a long suffering bank employee who is responsible for sitting in the back of the armored car and keep a watchful eye over the transportation of England's gold bullion. Over twenty years of faithful surface he suddenly comes up with a plan to steal a million pounds worth of gold (actually, the plan used in the movie was put together by employees of the Bank of England, who responded with amazing enthusiasm to a request for suggestions by Ealing Studio). Holland enlists Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a manufacturer of cheap souvenirs, for his plan and the gang is fleshed out with a couple of "professional" criminals, Lackery (Sidney James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass). All four of the mob members are distinctive characters and despite their shortcomings and their intention fo commit robbery, they are clearly not bad blokes. The caper is ingeniously simple and is pulled off with a couple of significant hitches. Then there are several major complications in trying to get away with the crime that has all of England talking, but that is the fun. Holland has our good will, mainly because of Guinness' winning performance; he received his first Oscar nomination for the role, winning five years later for "The Bridge on the Rive Kwai." Holland's impish smile as he finally seizes his opportunity for the life of which he has long dreamt is captivating. But the chief charm here is the script by T.E.B. Clarke, which did win the Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Originally, Clarke was working on the script as a straight drama but became intrigued by the comic possibilities of the story. There is one major extended chase scene in the film but what is more memorable is the sight of Holland and Pendlebury racing down the circular steps of the Eiffel Tower. This is not so much a great comedy as it is a solid one in the English tradition that flourished after the Second World War. The story is so well constructed that the film only runs 78-minutes and the humor comes out of the characters and the situations. Final Note: I am glad to know that when I thought the young woman in the opening scene of this film looked like Audrey Heburn that it was indeed the future film superstar. I just never thought of her as being a bit player. A minor pleasure Like most people, I am most familiar with Alec Guinness in his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. Of course, by the time he made that movie, he had been an acclaimed actor for a while. The Lavender Hill Mob is one of the reasons for that acclaim. Guinness stars as Henry Holland, a bank clerk who has reached middle-age with little to show for it: he's been stuck in the same job forever and lives a quiet, lonely life in a boarding house. Holland is also a dreamer, with a goal of stealing all the gold he counts every day and retire quietly abroad. When opportunity knocks, he answers and forms a small criminal gang to execute his scheme. It's a brilliant scheme, and of course, things go wrong. Chance events and Holland's cautious nature creates trouble. It makes for a nice caper flick, if not quite the same caliber as director Chricton's much later movie, A Fish Called Wanda. Yet this is a pleasant diversion (look for a young Audrey Hepburn in a cameo) and there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour-and-a-half. A marvelous DVD version of a great Ealing Brothers romp This marvlous film unites the talents of two of the greatest English comedians of the forties and fifties (Guinness more or less ceased doing comedy in the sixties on): Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. Guinness is, of course, one of the most famous and distinguished actors of the past half century, but Holloway is primarily known in the United States for a single role, though by no means his most representative, that of Alfred P. Doolittle in the film version of MY FAIR LADY. In this film we see him at his more typical, more akin to his performances in movies like PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Guinness, who was so versatile that he had no particular role that was typical of him, shines as a long suffering, faithful bank clerk of whom the old expression "still waters run deep" is especially true. Behind his nonexpressive, stoic face is the soul of a thief who intends to rob the bank of a small fortune. Holloway plays the owner of a very small company that makes tourist trinkets for souvenir shops. They team up to form the Lavender Hill Mob (named for the address of the boarding house in which they both live). As in so many movies, it isn't the getting there but the going there that's good. The plot takes a definite second place to the performances of the leads. One of my major complaints with Guinness is that the further he went in his career, the more he foresook comedy for drama. He was a subtle and brilliant commedian who excelled in subdued performances. Guinness could get more mileage out of a sly grin and his eyes than most actors can in their entire body. Holloway, on the other hand, is the master of broad comedy: exaggerated facial expressions, horrified poses, distraught reactions. Together they balance one another out perfectly. In scenes like their frantic and futile dash down the steps of the Eiffel Tower they are used to perfection. Ealing Studios made a string of utterly superb comedies in the 1940s and 1950s, and this is one of my favorites. I actually prefer this to the deeply cynical and dark KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, and consider it on any grounds to be superior to THE LADYKILLERS (oddly marred by Guinness's inexplicable impersonation of Alastair Sim, down to false teeth, body padding, and a hair-do that mimicked Sims's--when you go that far, why not just hire Sim instead?), and an honorable companion to films such as PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, and THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT). Audrey Hepburn had a number of walk on roles in British films in the very early 1950s, but didn't achieve real success until her stage work brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She is easily spotted in a bit role in this one, as the radiantly beautiful woman who stops to say hello to Guinness in the opening scene of the film. 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