l_rawjalaurence What makes THE LAVENDER HILL MOB such a perfect film? Is it the wittily executed plot carried out by meek bank official Mr. Holland (Alec Guinness) and his accomplices Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) and the two crooks (Alfie Bass, Sidney James). Is it director Alexander Mackendrick's sharply observed social criticism, in which all the gradations of rank within Holland's bank are shown to be unchallengeable. The higher up the social scale one goes, the bigger the office, and the more difficult it is to penetrate, especially for those at the foot of the ladder. All these distinctions are set aside once the bank treats Holland as a hero for his apparently brave efforts to foil the robbery. The fact that Holland is merely playing a part serves to emphasize his employers' social hypocrisies. Or is the film's social realism, it's precise setting in post-1945 London, whose generally shabby appearance - of bombed-out buildings and drab shop frontages - is occasionally interrupted by lively displays (for example, a large ad for the latest television, still an expensive luxury in the early Fifties). The Thames looks both lively yet fog-ridden, the kind of place that could conceal many secrets, both good and evil. Mackendrick's chase-sequence is a classic of its kind, as the police cars dash through London's residential areas, culminating in a memorable image at a junction in which all their car radio aerials are twisted together. THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is good for all of these reasons, the kind of film that befits repeated viewings in order to understand just how brilliant Mackendrick and writer T. E. H. Clarke actually were.

PimpinAinttEasy THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is a wonderful heist comedy that preceded THE LADYKILLERS by 4 years. Alec Guiness and Stanley Holloway are pretty square masterminds of a bullion robbery where everything seems to be going fine until a bunch of English school girls thwart their well laid out plans. Much hilarity ensues.The plotting is brilliant with some truly hilarious and surprising twists to the story. Especially the "surprise" at the end. There is a brilliant car chase and nearly everything about this movie was perfect. There is hardly a false note anywhere, not even in the most outrageously funny scenes.(10/10)

basilisksamuk I had recorded "The Lavender Hill Mob" and thought that this was bound to be good. The Guardian TV guide said it was a "sublime Ealing comedy with an Oscar-winning script." The August edition of Uncut magazine gave it 5 stars and told us that the director Charles Crichton "seduces with his charmingly angled take on post-war London". OK, that doesn't exactly have you foaming at the mouth with anticipation but everyone knows the Ealing comedies are brilliant. Everyone.Ninety minutes or so later I sat in my chair stunned into silence. It wasn't a revelatory stunning such as a really great movie can give you. This was a mind-numbingly bored, can't believe I just watched that, did they swap the real film for a bogus film, pass the whiskey bottle quick type of stunned. How could so many people be so wrong? Why have they lied to me about this "sublime" film? Is it me? I think that the facts speak otherwise.So first let me say that Alec Obi-Wan Guinness and Stanley Holloway act well and that there is a nice chiaroscuro effect reminiscent of German expressionist cinema during a scene in a cellar workshop at night. Other good points are…… oh, I'm sorry, there aren't any other good points. What about the bad points then? The whole thing is set in dreary post-war London and is faithfully dreary throughout – the clothes, the buildings, the people, the acting, everything is dreary to the nth degree. The plot is unremarkable, the script pedestrian. The lighting and camera-work is uninspired. There are only one and a half laughs in the entire film and they are more slightly and elliptically amusing than downright funny laughs. There are no pretty women (oh, sorry Audrey Hepburn appears for 3.7 seconds early on and then disappears but I didn't count this), all the men are nerds of the unfunny type and the action looks like it was filmed by the technical crew from Crossroads. I've seen Bergman films that are funnier than this.Recently I heard someone on the radio drawing a parallel between Ealing comedies and modern British comedies like 4 Weddings and A Funeral and Not the Full Monty. I think that they are right about this. In 40 years time people will see British films of the 1990's and be completely mystified as to how anyone could find most of them either interesting or funny. Weddings, Monty, Lavender Hill – all weak jokes based around the English class system that we are supposed to find endearing and funny but which actually practice a deep and nastily patronising attitude to the working and middle classes. There is no affection for ordinary people in these films just a thinly-disguised disdain. Come the revolution and I'll be lining these films up in Wembley stadium, along with all film trailers, for termination with extreme prejudice.

mark.waltz I do not recall the last time I had such a good time in watching a film comedy as I did with this one. I've known about this classic for years but somehow in the list of thousands of films I've taken the time out to see, this one got put off-until now. I guarantee that I will re-visit this film probably several times over the next few years, because like a few other greats, this one seems like the type of film that will show me things that I missed the first time around.This is a British comedy even us Americans can enjoy, brilliant in every aspect from start to finish, and featuring one of the all-time best screenplays that stands the test of time as it sets out to amuse and comically teach that crime never pays off. The wonderful Alec Guennis, with that grinch-like grin, plays a milquetoast so mild-mannered he's content with his long-time position as the guardian of gold bricks as they are sent from being made to the vaults in which they are stored. Nobody suspects that he could be anything more, and his employer agrees that the only real quality he has is his total honesty. That is, until, he makes it known to the audience that he has only been honest up until now in order to bide time to get his employer's trust so he can move forward with his dastardly plan, stealing bricks of gold and having them shipped out of the country. When the robbery does occur, he is made a hero, having been "kidnapped" by the robbers. Nobody suspects him of everything, and on vacation in France, the gold (made into miniature Eiffel Towers) are shipped for impending pick-up. But six of them are sold to some British schoolgirls at the real Eiffel Tower, and Guennis chases them down the tower (in a hysterical cartoon like chase) in order to get them. They keep repeating "Goodbye, Goodbye!" like they know something is up and wish to rub it in his face. So when he shows up at their school and makes an offer to get them back, it is like he is taking candy away from babies, and it is totally delightful.Guennis was deservedly Oscar Nominated for this grandiose performance, and is ably supported by a fine cast, most notably Stanley Holloway, giving a not so cockney performance (as he did in "My Fair Lady") and Marjorie Fielding. Diminutive Edie Martin steals every moment she is on screen as Guennis's landlord. The screenplay combines comedy both verbal and slapstick with chase sequences both thrilling and hysterically funny. And when the police car Guennis is riding in starts playing "Old MacDonald", I dare you to try not to choke from laughter. The film, told in flashback (which has a cameo by starlet Audrey Hepburn, instantly recognizable in her adorable walk-on), has so many great twists and turns like the London streets, Eiffel Tower stairwell, and eventually the South American get-away it starts and finishes in. No remake of this film could do it justice.