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The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writer:
T.E.B. Clarke (original screenplay)
Release Date:
10 September 1951 (Sweden)
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Tagline:
He stole $3,000,000 in gold and that's a lot of BULLion! more
Plot:
A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipment of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country as miniature Eifel Towers. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Won Oscar.
Another 2 wins
&
4 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(6 articles)
Retro Cafe: 'The Man in the White Suit'
(From CinemaSpy. 31 May 2009, 9:05 PM, PDT)
Ealing Studios Backed by Disney
(From WENN. 14 April 2003)
(From CinemaSpy. 31 May 2009, 9:05 PM, PDT)
Ealing Studios Backed by Disney
(From WENN. 14 April 2003)
User Comments:
Small is beautiful
more (38 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only) | Alec Guinness | ... | Holland |
 | Stanley Holloway | ... | Pendlebury |
| Sid James | ... | Lackery (as Sidney James) |
| Alfie Bass | ... | Shorty |
| Marjorie Fielding | ... | Mrs. Chalk |
| Edie Martin | ... | Miss Evesham |
| John Salew | ... | Parkin |
| Ronald Adam | ... | Turner |
| Arthur Hambling | ... | Wallis |
| Gibb McLaughlin | ... | Godwin |
| John Gregson | ... | Farrow |
| Clive Morton | ... | Station Sergeant |
| Sydney Tafler | ... | Clayton |
| Marie Burke | ... | Senora Gallardo |
 | Audrey Hepburn | ... | Chiquita |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
UK:81 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (RCA Sound System)
Certification:
Iceland:L |
USA:Approved (MPAA rating: certificate #15054) |
UK:U (video rating) (1988) |
Finland:K-16 |
Sweden:15 |
UK:U
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
T.E.B. Clarke was originally meant to do a sequel to the popular police drama, The Blue Lamp (1950), but he quickly decided he'd much rather write a comedy instead.
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Goofs:
Continuity: After the raid we see the maroon (dark colored) bullion van being driven into an abandoned warehouse to be emptied (33mins 10 secs into the movie). In the next short shot of the van parking, the van has now become a light colored van. After that we see the dark colored van again.
more
Quotes:
Pendlebury:
Now it's all over, I suppose I may dare say it's been a most remarkable coup.
Shorty: The biggest job of its kind since One-Eyed Dobson got away with the GIs' pay packets. Two million dollars, Grosvenor Square, 'forty-five.
Henry Holland: That was before devaluation. And this is one million pounds.
Shorty: Oh, that's right. Blimey. We've got the record!
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Shorty: The biggest job of its kind since One-Eyed Dobson got away with the GIs' pay packets. Two million dollars, Grosvenor Square, 'forty-five.
Henry Holland: That was before devaluation. And this is one million pounds.
Shorty: Oh, that's right. Blimey. We've got the record!
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in "Best of British: Ealing Comedies (#5.12)" (1993)
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Soundtrack:
Music
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FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (38 total)
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
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| Movie location | billy-168 |
| The ending | spb_x99 |
| Audrey + Sir Alec | Master_of_the_Pride |
| Favourite Ealing? | HarryCC41 |
| Valerie Singleton | cgiovannone |
| Re-enacting scenes | carolsh |
Recommendations
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What hits you first about LHM is its smallness. It is a small film (78 min) made with a small budget about some small people. But their smallness doesn't stop them from dreaming the impossibly big - rob the Bank of England! In fact it is this very smallness & unobtrusiveness that gives Alec Guinness & Stanley Holloway - bank clerk & artist respectively - their chance.
The film, told in an intelligent flashback, is divided into 3 segments. First is the plotting. A mild mannered bank clerk meets a minor artist. Both want to get out of their seedy Lavender Hill boarding house & nondescript existance. Both look past their glory days. Yet together they have the opportunity to pull off a brilliant crime.
Then comes the heist. A surprisingly simple operation perfectly (almost!) executed. Finally the escape - getting the gold outside the country into the 'continental blackmarket'. Alas, the movie being made in the good old days when crime didn't pay, our heroes must suffer. But by then they have given us enough joy & adventure for us to forgive their one tragic slip.
This is definitely one of the best comedies Ealing studios made in the '50s (my other favourite is the vastly underrated 'Hue & Cry' where Alistair Sim gives a typical quirky performance & the tipsy 'Whiskey Galore'). Holloway & Guinness acted in many of them. They usually played very stiff upper British lip polite, eccentric, but excitable characters. In this movie they decide they are familiar enough to ask each other their first names only after they have robbed a bank together! When Holloway realises they can pull it off, his face is hidden in the shadows as he slowly tells Guinness, 'Thank God Holland, we are both honest men' - a line which I think summarises the entire movie.
The reason this movie is so amusing even today is that it is very tightly scripted (Tibby Clark won an Oscar for his effort) & brilliantly realised by the ensemble cast. As far as caper films go this has half the gadgetry of 'Entrapment' but twice the fun.
This is the 3rd time I am seeing this movie & I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. Please see this one!