''The Lavender Hill Mob'' is a 1951 comedy film from Ealing Studios, written by T. E. B. Clarke, directed by Charles Crichton, starring

Alec Guinness Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (194 ...

and Stanley Holloway and featuring Sid James and Alfie Bass. The title refers to Lavender Hill, a street in

Battersea Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park. History Batter ...

, a district in London SW11, near to

Clapham Junction railway station Clapham Junction railway station () is a major railway station and transport hub near St John's Hill in south-west Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is from and from ; it is on both the South West Main Line and Brighton Main L ...

. The British Film Institute ranked ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' the 17th greatest British film of all time. The original film was digitally restored and re-released to UK cinemas on 29 July 2011 to celebrate its 60th anniversary. It is one of fifteen films listed in the category "Art" on the Vatican film list.

Plot

Henry Holland lives the life of luxury in Rio de Janeiro, and spends an evening dining out with a British visitor. During their meal, he narrates a story concerning how he changed his life by instigating an intricate gold bullion robbery. One year ago, Holland served as an unambitious London bank clerk, who for twenty years was in charge of gold bullion deliveries. Although dedicated to his job due to his reputation for fussing over details, he had begun to devise a scheme to steal a consignment of gold bullion. However, his plan had a flaw - selling it on the

black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...

in Britain was too risky, and he was at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad. One evening at his boarding house in Lavender Hill, he meets with artist Alfred Pendlebury, who has taken up lodgings in the building. A conversation with him leads him to discover that Pendlebury owns a foundry that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in holiday destinations, one of which is Paris. Realizing that Pendlebury is the key to his plan's success, Holland explains his scheme to the artist who agrees to help. When the clerk discovers he is due to be transferred to another bank department, the pair quickly move their plan into action, recruiting the aid of petty thieves, Lackery Wood and Shorty Fisher. On the day of the robbery, Wood and Fisher hijack the bullion van and switch the gold to one of Pendlebury's works van. Holland then assumes the role of an unfortunate victim who is hailed as a hero for raising the alarm, after nearly drowning by accident. As his associates melt down the gold bullion and recast it as Eiffel Tower paperweights to be exported abroad, Holland gives false statements and misleading clues to the police, led by Inspector Farrow. The group soon toast to their success, despite Wood and Fisher being unable to travel to Paris to collect their share in person, entrusting the other two to provide it. The day after their last consignment of stolen gold is sent to Paris, Holland and Pendlebury head to France to retrieve them from a souvenir kiosk atop the Eiffel Tower supplied by Pendlebury's firm. However, the pair are horrified when they find one of the boxes containing the golden paperweights has been opened by mistake due to a language mix-up. Discovering six have been sold to a group of English schoolgirls, the pair make a wild chase to pursue after them back to Britain. Both manage to track down the schoolgirls, but only manage to get back five of the paperweights. The girl holding the sixth one refuses, intending to deliver it to a policeman she is friends with. Holland and Pendlebury pursue after the girl, and watch in horror as it is brought to an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College. Holland's worst fears come true when Farrow, having begun to realize the truth, spots the paperweight and orders a chemical test on it. Left with no choice, Holland snatches it, and he and Pendlebury make their escape in a stolen police car. A confusing pursuit begins across London, as Holland uses the car's radio to feed false, misleading information to the officers pursuing the pair. However, both find themselves forced to offer a passing police officer a lift on the car's footplate, causing them to be eventually discovered. As Pendlebury becomes trapped, Holland escapes with the six golden paperweights, which leave him with a tidy sum to enjoy a new life. After finishing his tale to his visitor back in the present day, Holland admits that the money is now all gone. As the pair prepare to leave, the visitor is revealed as a police officer, and that Holland has been finally arrested for his crime as the story concludes.

Cast

;Cast notes *

Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, t ...

makes an early film appearance in a small role as Chiquita near the start of the film. Robert Shaw also made his first film appearance, playing a police laboratory technician towards the end of the film. English actress Patricia Garwood made her first film appearance in this movie at the age of nine.

Production

Screenwriter Clarke is said to have come up with the idea of a clerk robbing his own bank while doing research for the film ''

Pool of London The Pool of London is a stretch of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Limehouse. Part of the Tideway of the Thames, the Pool was navigable by tall-masted vessels bringing coastal and later overseas goods—the wharves there were the ...

'' (1951), a crime thriller surrounding a jewel theft. He consulted the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...

on the project and it set up a special committee to advise on how best the robbery could take place.'' The Aurum Film Encyclopedia – The Gangster Film'', edited by Phil Hardy, Aurum Press, 1998'' Empire'' – ''Special Collectors' Edition – The Greatest Crime Movies Ever'', published in 2001 Extensive location filming was made in both London and Paris. The scenes show a London still marked by bomb sites from the Second World War. ;London, England, UK *

Bank Underground Station Bank and Monument are interlinked London Underground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) stations that form a public transport complex spanning the length of King William Street in the City of London. Bank station, named after the Bank of Engl ...

, Threadneedle Street *Bramley Arms Pub, Bramley Road, Notting Hill (finale: end of the chase) * Cheapside *Carlton Road,

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

(zebra crossing on way to police exhibition) *

Gunnersbury Park Gunnersbury Park is a park in the London Borough of Hounslow between Acton, Brentford, Chiswick and Ealing, West London, England. Purchased for the nation from the Rothschild family, it was opened to the public by Neville Chamberlain, then ...

(police exhibition) * Queen Victoria Street,

Blackfriars Blackfriars, derived from Black Friars, a common name for the Dominican Order of friars, may refer to: England * Blackfriars, Bristol, a former priory in Bristol * Blackfriars, Canterbury, a former monastery in Kent * Blackfriars, Gloucester, a f ...

(scene of bullion robbery) * RAF Northolt, Ruislip (airport) ;Paris, France * River Seine * Eiffel Tower The scene where Holland and Pendlebury run down the Eiffel Tower's spiral staircase and become increasingly

dizzy Dizziness is an imprecise term that can refer to a sense of disorientation in space, vertigo, or lightheadedness. It can also refer to disequilibrium or a non-specific feeling, such as giddiness or foolishness. Dizziness is a common medica ...

and erratic, as does the camera work, presages

James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality h ...

's condition in

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

's '' Vertigo'', made seven years later. A film montage of sensational newspaper headlines marks the crime as taking place in August 1950, whilst posters for the Hendon exhibition state that it marks the centenary of the death of Sir Robert Peel, which occurred on 2 July 1850. In the car chase scene at the end of the film, an officer uses a police box to report seeing a police car being driven by a man in a top hat. In fact, the driver is a modern-day police officer from the exhibition wearing the uniform of the police as originally set up in 1829 by Peel, known as "Bobbies" or "Peelers" after him.

Reception

''The Lavender Hill Mob'' had its charity world premiere at the

Marble Arch Odeon The Odeon Marble Arch (known as the Regal from 1928 to 1945) was a cinema in London located opposite Marble Arch, at the top of Park Lane, with its main entrance on Edgware Road. It operated in various forms from 1928 to 2016, and is most fa ...

cinema in London on 28 June 1951. The film was popular at the British box office. It had rentals of $580,000 at the U.S. box office.

Awards and honours

The film won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Guinness was nominated for the award of

Best Actor in a Leading Role Best or The Best may refer to: People * Best (surname), people with the surname Best * Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer Companies and organizations * Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain * Best Lock Corporatio ...

. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Stage adaptation

A stage adaptation of the film written by Phil Porter and directed by Jeremy Sams opened in October 2022 at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham before touring the UK, starring Miles Jupp as Henry Holland and Justin Edwards as Alfred Pendlebury.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Vermilye, Jerry. ''The Great British Films''. Citadel Press, 1978. pp. 147–149

External links

* * *
''The Lavender Hill Mob'' review at Old Movies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lavender Hill Mob, The 1951 films 1950s heist films Cultural depictions of Metropolitan Police officers Best British Film BAFTA Award winners British black-and-white films British crime comedy films British heist films Ealing Studios films Films scored by Georges Auric Films about bank robbery Films directed by Charles Crichton Films produced by Michael Balcon Films set in London Films set in Paris Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award 1950s French-language films Portuguese-language films Films with screenplays by T. E. B. Clarke 1950s crime comedy films 1951 comedy films Eiffel Tower in fiction 1950s English-language films 1950s British films