The Lavender Hill Mob
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Movie Reviews of The Lavender Hill Mob
Movie Review: Underdogs Don't Always Win - But They Come Close
Summary: 4 Stars
Directed by Charles Crichton. With Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway - A film for a lifetime! Lavender Hill (yes, that's really a district in London) Mob is another soft non-violent, clean, thoughtful comedy out of England's post war film Renascence - with the added joy of a thoughtful performance by a very young Guinness - who had already made his mark on cinema in heavy weight films like Great Expectations and Oliver Twist and as a multi-part actor in Kind Hearts and Coronets - Soft, thoughtful and funny. Can't beat it!Movie Review: Movie Buff
Summary: 4 Stars
Another fine Alec Guiness comedy performance. It has the nice guys turned master criminal element along with a dash of "keystone Kops" slapstick. A silly but amusing film.
Movie Review: The Lavender Hill Mob
Summary: 4 Stars
This old classic movie is wonderful- the black and white photography just adds to it.
If you are an Alec Guiness fan you'll love it!!
Movie Review: The Little Movie That Could
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Lavender Hill Mob" is another of those classic black and white British comedies of the 1950's - 1951 in this case - that were made by the near-legendary Ealing Studios--see Ealing Studios Comedy Collection (The Maggie / A Run for Your Money / Titfield Thunderbolt / Whisky Galore! / Passport to Pimlico). Ealing's greatest and best known comedies are probably The Ladykillers; and Kind Hearts and Coronets - Criterion Collection, each starring Alec Guinness, as this film does. This one is not in their class, however,and, to me, hasn't held up as well, though it still has its moments. Although it too stars the fantastically talented Alec Guinness, and a whole mob of famous comic Cockney actors of the time, it is a short, small movie that was made on a limited budget. Nevertheless, in 1951 it won an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, by T.E. B. Clarke; and Alec Guinness received a nomination for Best Leading Actor. In 1952, it received a BAFTA (the British equivalent of an Oscar) for Best British film of the Year. It was directed by the talented Charles Crichton, who would have a decades-long career (A Fish Called Wanda).
Guinness, who went on to win more Oscars and even greater international fame,(The Bridge on the River Kwai; Star Wars Trilogy) stars as Henry Holland, mild-mannered bank clerk, who has spent 20 meek years working for the Bank of England, drudging away, delivering gold bullion, dreaming fruitlessly of a way to steal a shipment. Until, that is, Alfred Pendlebury, played by the great Stanley Holloway,(My Fair Lady) comes to room in the same down-at-heels Lavender Hill hotel. Pendlebury fancies himself an artist; however, it's his day job - he owns a company that casts and sells cheap souvenir statuary all over the world -- that ultimately comes in handy. The suddenly larceny-minded pair realize they need further criminal assistance, and so find an ingenious way of recruiting Lackery (Sid James,Carry On Laughing - The Complete Series); and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass, Are You Being Served? The Complete Collection). Sidney Tafler (Carry on Regardless ) has a fun part as Clayton. The movie might almost be best-known today for introducing the beautiful young Audrey Hepburn, ultimately to be widely loved,in her tiny, first major film role, as Chiquita. ("My Fair Lady"; "Breakfast At Tiffany's"). It also gave Robert Shaw ("Jaws") and Frank Forsyth ("Carry On Cleo/Carry On Jack") their first, unaccredited, screen parts.
Well, the film seems a little slow today, and is more likely to deliver a chuckle than a belly laugh. But it has a neat, tight little plot, and it does shine in spots. It was, to some degree, filmed on the dreary streets of immediate post-war London; a viewer can make out that city's famous landmarks; also see the extensive damage from the German bombing Blitz. The movie, furthermore, boasts some fantastical, surrealistic scenes: as Holland and Pendlebury dizzily clamber down the stairs of Paris's Eiffel Tower (don't ask), Holland's hat and Pendlebury's coat float stunningly free. In the middle of London, a Welsh bobby, grabbing a lift on the police car's running board, sings lustily along, in a fine baritone, to "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," which is inexplicably blasting out of the radio of the police car Holland and Pendlebury have just stolen. (Don't even think of asking). However, unfortunately, the filmmakers were influenced by the American censorship laws of the time (to flout them would have meant sacrificing that huge, profitable market); that does somewhat moderate the fun. Still, the film's worth seeing, before what's bound to be the big, overblown, high-budget American remake is released.
Movie Review: Nice little comedy with Alec Guinness
Summary: 3 Stars
I know this film has rave reviews from a lot of connossieurs of this era and this genre (that is, a British-made comedy from the early '50s), and it's pleasant enough but just isn't for everybody. Which is fine, no movie is.
As a Yank cretin who grew up in the '70s, however, who mainly knows Guinness from his Obi Wan Kenobe turn in "Star Wars," it's mainly a pleasure to see just how talented an actor the old fella really was. Subtle and nuanced, although he can't quite seem to be consistent with just how nasal the character's voice should be from line to line, here Guinness plays "Dutch" Holland, a man whose job involves checking the melting of British gold into bricks and seeing that they are transported properly to their Very Safe Place.
Problem is, for 19 years Dutch has been living a very quiet and unsuspicious life but wishing he could find a way to smuggle some of that gold out of the country...so quiet and unsuspicious that he won't even let on that he wants to be known as "Dutch." Then Mr. Holland meets an exporter of Eiffel Tower replicas who agrees to make them from stolen gold from now on...and the fun ensues. (This is in stark contrast to the official Amazon review, wherein Dutch suddenly decides to do this with an old friend, as opposed to the actual plot where he fulfills an old fantasy with a new friend. Do these people actually WATCH these movies before reviewing them?)
Anyway, Sir Alec is a joy to watch, and there is a very compelling scene wherein he and his exporter friend race down the Eiffel Tower on foot. It really becomes a bit of a madcap farce, and certainly won't lose your attention.
In the end, however, in spite of nice plot twists and a few laughs along the way, it really amounts to no more than a mildly pleasant diversion...unless you really REALLY like those British sitcoms seen so often on PBS. If that describes you, this would definitely be your cup of tea, so to speak. If, however, the only British comedy you've ever really REALLY liked on PBS involved the word Python in the title, you may wish to pass.