The Lavender Hill Mob
Encyclopedia
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
and Stanley Holloway
and featuring Sid James
and Alfie Bass
. The title refers to Lavender Hill
, a street in Battersea
, a district of South London
, in the postcode
district SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station
.
The original film has been digitally restored and re-released to UK cinemas, (July 29 2011), along with other classic Ealing comedies.
) is a timid London bank clerk who has been in charge of gold bullion deliveries for over 20 years. He has a reputation for fussing over details and panicking about suspect cars following the bullion van, and appears to be a man dedicated to his job and the gold's security. But, in fact, he has hatched the "perfect" plot to steal a load of bullion and retire. The one thing that has prevented this plan from being put into operation is that selling the gold on the black market in Britain would be too risky, and Holland is at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad.
One evening a new lodger — artist Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway
) — arrives at the boarding house where Holland lives in Lavender Hill
. Pendlebury owns a foundry
that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in many resorts, including foreign ones. Noticing how similar the foundry is to the place where the gold is made into ingot
s, Holland decides that the ideal way of smuggling the gold out of the country would be as Eiffel Tower
paperweights sold in Paris, and puts this hypothetically to his new friend: "By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men." "It is indeed, Pendlebury."
When Holland suddenly finds that he is about to be transferred to another department at the bank, he and Pendlebury quickly move into action. They recruit two petty crooks, Lackery Wood (Sidney James
) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass
), to help them carry out the robbery. The plan is simple but clever, and it succeeds: Wood and Fisher carry out the hijack of the bullion van and switch the gold to Pendlebury's works van. Holland, who is supposedly assaulted and almost drowned in the robbery, becomes the hero of the hour. The police find themselves running around in circles, unable to track down the "master criminal" who is in fact right under their noses giving them false statements and misleading clues. Meanwhile, Holland and his associates melt the gold in Pendlebury's foundry and export it to France disguised as miniature Eiffel Towers.
The plan goes wrong when the woman who runs the Eiffel Tower souvenir kiosk misunderstands what she is supposed to do, and instead of holding back the specially-marked box of Eiffel Towers, opens it and puts the souvenirs out for sale. Pendlebury and Holland, who have adopted the names of "Al" and "Dutch", arrive to retrieve their disguised bullion only to find that six of the towers have been sold to a party of British schoolgirls. A wild chase back to the Channel
ferry follows but all sorts of hold-ups, including problems with the customs men, prevent them from getting to the ship and the girls in time.
If just one of those towers is found to be gold then the game is up. Pendlebury and Holland therefore track down the schoolgirls and, in exchange for a similar tower and ten shilling
s, recover most of the loot. One girl however refuses to return hers since she intends to give it to a friend who is a policeman. The girl delivers the souvenir to the officer, who is at an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College
. Also attending is a police inspector who is investigating the robbery. As part of the case he checked up on Pendlebury's foundry and was told that many souvenirs bought in foreign places are actually made in England. A sudden thought occurs to him and he orders the souvenir to be tested. At that moment Pendlebury snatches it and he and Holland make their escape in a police car.
A confused pursuit then takes place through London, with Holland using the radio in the police car to give false descriptions of the vehicle in which the crooks are riding. Eventually, though, an officer succeeds in getting into their car and arresting Pendlebury. Holland escapes to Rio de Janeiro
with the six gold towers, worth "twenty-five thousand pounds, enough to keep me for one year in the style to which I was, ah, unaccustomed." After the money is mostly gone, he is telling his story to a British visitor before they both leave the restaurant, handcuffed to one another; Holland has been found and arrested and is due for extradition
back to the UK.
on the project and it set up a special committee to advise on how best the robbery could take place.
Explaining that they do not care to travel abroad, Wood and Fisher both trust Holland and Pendlebury enough to let them go to France without them, recover the gold, sell it and return with their fair share of the proceeds. Some might view this as honour among thieves or traditional British working class
deference to middle class
leadership, though an article in Empire magazine reportedly interprets it more politically as a metaphor
for the faith put into Clement Attlee
's post-war Labour
government by the voters who were then, in the view of the article's author, "betrayed by their implicitly trusted betters" (note, however, that there is in fact no indication in the film that Holland and Pendlebury have the intention of betraying their confederates).
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 wearing the uniform of the police as they were originally set up in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, and known as "Bobbies" or "Peelers".
The scene where Holland and Pendlebury run down the Eiffel Tower steps and become increasingly dizzy
and erratic, as does the camera work, presages James Stewart
's condition in Alfred Hitchcock
's Vertigo
, made seven years later.
Cast notes
for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Guinness was nominated for the award of Best Actor in a Leading Role
. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
from Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since...
, written by T.E.B. Clarke, directed by Charles Crichton
Charles Crichton
Charles Crichton was an English film director and film editor. He became best known for directing comedies produced at Ealing Studios...
, starring Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
and Stanley Holloway
Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
and featuring Sid James
Sid James
Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
and Alfie Bass
Alfie Bass
Alfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...
. The title refers to Lavender Hill
Lavender Hill
Lavender Hill is a hill near Clapham Junction in South London, England. The street name Lavender Hill is a continuation of St John's Hill and forms the section of the A3036 as it rises eastwards out of the Falconbrook valley at Clapham Junction, and retains that name for approximately 1.5 km...
, a street in Battersea
Battersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
, a district of South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
, in the postcode
UK postcodes
The postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were introduced by the Royal Mail over a 15-year period from 11th October 1959 to 1974...
district SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station
Clapham Junction railway station
Clapham Junction railway station is near St John's Hill in the south-west of Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Although it is in Battersea, the area around the station is commonly identified as Clapham Junction....
.
The original film has been digitally restored and re-released to UK cinemas, (July 29 2011), along with other classic Ealing comedies.
Plot
Henry Holland (Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
) is a timid London bank clerk who has been in charge of gold bullion deliveries for over 20 years. He has a reputation for fussing over details and panicking about suspect cars following the bullion van, and appears to be a man dedicated to his job and the gold's security. But, in fact, he has hatched the "perfect" plot to steal a load of bullion and retire. The one thing that has prevented this plan from being put into operation is that selling the gold on the black market in Britain would be too risky, and Holland is at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad.
One evening a new lodger — artist Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway
Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
) — arrives at the boarding house where Holland lives in Lavender Hill
Lavender Hill
Lavender Hill is a hill near Clapham Junction in South London, England. The street name Lavender Hill is a continuation of St John's Hill and forms the section of the A3036 as it rises eastwards out of the Falconbrook valley at Clapham Junction, and retains that name for approximately 1.5 km...
. Pendlebury owns a foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in many resorts, including foreign ones. Noticing how similar the foundry is to the place where the gold is made into ingot
Ingot
An ingot is a material, usually metal, that is cast into a shape suitable for further processing. Non-metallic and semiconductor materials prepared in bulk form may also be referred to as ingots, particularly when cast by mold based methods.-Uses:...
s, Holland decides that the ideal way of smuggling the gold out of the country would be as Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
paperweights sold in Paris, and puts this hypothetically to his new friend: "By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men." "It is indeed, Pendlebury."
When Holland suddenly finds that he is about to be transferred to another department at the bank, he and Pendlebury quickly move into action. They recruit two petty crooks, Lackery Wood (Sidney James
Sid James
Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass
Alfie Bass
Alfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...
), to help them carry out the robbery. The plan is simple but clever, and it succeeds: Wood and Fisher carry out the hijack of the bullion van and switch the gold to Pendlebury's works van. Holland, who is supposedly assaulted and almost drowned in the robbery, becomes the hero of the hour. The police find themselves running around in circles, unable to track down the "master criminal" who is in fact right under their noses giving them false statements and misleading clues. Meanwhile, Holland and his associates melt the gold in Pendlebury's foundry and export it to France disguised as miniature Eiffel Towers.
The plan goes wrong when the woman who runs the Eiffel Tower souvenir kiosk misunderstands what she is supposed to do, and instead of holding back the specially-marked box of Eiffel Towers, opens it and puts the souvenirs out for sale. Pendlebury and Holland, who have adopted the names of "Al" and "Dutch", arrive to retrieve their disguised bullion only to find that six of the towers have been sold to a party of British schoolgirls. A wild chase back to the Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
ferry follows but all sorts of hold-ups, including problems with the customs men, prevent them from getting to the ship and the girls in time.
If just one of those towers is found to be gold then the game is up. Pendlebury and Holland therefore track down the schoolgirls and, in exchange for a similar tower and ten shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s, recover most of the loot. One girl however refuses to return hers since she intends to give it to a friend who is a policeman. The girl delivers the souvenir to the officer, who is at an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College
Hendon Police College
Hendon Police College is the principal training centre for London's Metropolitan Police Service. Founded with the official name of the Metropolitan Police College, the college is today officially called the Peel Centre, although its original name is still used frequently...
. Also attending is a police inspector who is investigating the robbery. As part of the case he checked up on Pendlebury's foundry and was told that many souvenirs bought in foreign places are actually made in England. A sudden thought occurs to him and he orders the souvenir to be tested. At that moment Pendlebury snatches it and he and Holland make their escape in a police car.
A confused pursuit then takes place through London, with Holland using the radio in the police car to give false descriptions of the vehicle in which the crooks are riding. Eventually, though, an officer succeeds in getting into their car and arresting Pendlebury. Holland escapes to Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
with the six gold towers, worth "twenty-five thousand pounds, enough to keep me for one year in the style to which I was, ah, unaccustomed." After the money is mostly gone, he is telling his story to a British visitor before they both leave the restaurant, handcuffed to one another; Holland has been found and arrested and is due for extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
back to the UK.
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 (1951), a crime thriller surrounding a jewel theft. He consulted the Bank of EnglandBank 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, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
on the project and it set up a special committee to advise on how best the robbery could take place.
Explaining that they do not care to travel abroad, Wood and Fisher both trust Holland and Pendlebury enough to let them go to France without them, recover the gold, sell it and return with their fair share of the proceeds. Some might view this as honour among thieves or traditional British working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
deference to middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
leadership, though an article in Empire magazine reportedly interprets it more politically as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for the faith put into Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
's post-war Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government by the voters who were then, in the view of the article's author, "betrayed by their implicitly trusted betters" (note, however, that there is in fact no indication in the film that Holland and Pendlebury have the intention of betraying their confederates).
In the car chase scene at the end of the film, an officer uses a police box
Police box
A police box is a British telephone kiosk or callbox located in a public place for the use of members of the police, or for members of the public to contact the police...
to report seeing a police car being driven by a man in a top hat. In fact the driver is wearing the uniform of the police as they were originally set up in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, and known as "Bobbies" or "Peelers".
The scene where Holland and Pendlebury run down the Eiffel Tower steps and become increasingly dizzy
Dizziness
Dizziness refers to an impairment in spatial perception and stability. The term is somewhat imprecise. It can be used to mean vertigo, presyncope, disequilibrium, or a non-specific feeling such as giddiness or foolishness....
and erratic, as does the camera work, presages James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
's condition in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
, made seven years later.
Cast
- Alec GuinnessAlec GuinnessSir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
as Henry Holland - Stanley HollowayStanley HollowayStanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
as Alfred Pendlebury - Sid JamesSid JamesSid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
as Lackery Wood - Alfie BassAlfie BassAlfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...
as Shorty Fisher - Marjorie FieldingMarjorie Fielding-Selected filmography:* Quiet Wedding * Spring in Park Lane * Conspirator * The Mudlark * The Lavender Hill Mob * Mandy * The Magic Box...
as Mrs. Chalk - Edie Martin as Miss Evesham
- John SalewJohn Salew-Selected filmography:* The Silent Battle * Sailors Don't Care * Once a Crook * One of Our Aircraft Is Missing * The Day Will Dawn * Secret Mission * It Always Rains on Sunday...
as Parkin - Ronald AdamRonald Adam (actor)Ronald Adam OBE , born Ronald George Hinings Adams, was a British RAF officer, an actor on stage and screen and a successful theatre manager.-Early life:...
as Turner - Arthur HamblingArthur HamblingArthur Hambling was a British actor, he was best known for appearances in the films Henry V and The Lavender Hill Mob .-Selected filmography:* The Scoop * French Leave...
as Wallis - Gibb McLaughlinGibb McLaughlinGibb McLaughlin was an English film actor. He appeared in 118 films between 1921 and 1959. He was born in Sunderland, England and died in London, England.-Selected filmography:* The Road to London...
as Godwin - John GregsonJohn GregsonJohn Gregson was an English actor.He was born Harold Thomas Gregson, of Irish descent, and grew up in Wavertree, Liverpool, where he was educated at Greenbank Road primary school, later St Francis Xavier School...
as Farrow - Clive MortonClive MortonClive Morton was an English actor who made many screen appearances, especially on television. In 1955, he appeared in Laurence Olivier's Richard III and is recalled by fans of Doctor Who for his role as Trenchard in The Sea Devils in 1972...
as Station Sergeant
- Sydney TaflerSydney TaflerSydney Tafler , was a British film and television actor, first appearing in London's West End in 1936, after two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, with Sir Seymour Hicks in The Man in Dress Clothes....
as Clayton - Audrey HepburnAudrey HepburnAudrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
as Chiquita - William FoxWilliam Fox (actor)William Hubert Fox TD was a British character actor and writer. Fox enjoyed early success on the stage playing juvenile roles...
as Gregory - Michael TrubshaweMichael TrubshaweMichael Trubshawe was a British actor and former officer in the Highland Regiment of the British Army. Trubshawe was very close friends with the famous British actor David Niven, serving as best man for both Niven's weddings, and is constantly referred to in Niven's memoirs The Moon's a Balloon,...
as British Ambassador - Eugene DeckersEugene DeckersEugene Deckers was a Belgian stage actor who relocated to England when his Nazi-held homeland was liberated by the Allies. Re-establishing himself on the British stage, Deckers made his first English language film appearance in 1946. Formerly a romantic lead, he specialized in "continental"...
as Customs Official - Cyril ChamberlainCyril ChamberlainCyril Chamberlain was an English film and television actor. He appeared in a number of the early Carry On, Doctor in the House and St. Trinian's films....
as Commander - Moultrie KelsallMoultrie KelsallMoultrie Rowe Kelsall was a Scottish film and television character actor, who began his career in the industry as a radio station director and television producer...
as Detective Superintendent - Christopher HewettChristopher HewettChristopher Michael Hewett was an English actor and theatre director best known for his role as Lynn Belvedere on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere.-Career:...
as Inspector Talbot - Meredith EdwardsMeredith Edwards (actor)Gwilym Meredith Edwards was a Welsh character actor and writer.He was born in Rhosllannerchrugog, Denbighshire, Wales, the son of a collier. He became an actor in 1938, first with the Welsh National Theatre Company, then the Liverpool Playhouse...
as P.C. Williams - Patrick BarrPatrick BarrPatrick David Barr was a British film and television actor.Born in Akola, India, Patrick Barr went from stage to screen with The Merry Men of Sherwood . He spent the 1930s playing various beneficent authority figures and "reliable friend" types...
as Divisional Detective Inspector - Richard WattisRichard WattisRichard Cameron Wattis , was an English character actor.He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and Bromsgrove School, after which he worked for the family electrical engineering firm before becoming a professional actor. After his debut with Croydon Repertory Theatre he made many stage...
as opposition MPMember of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(uncredited)
Cast notes
- Audrey HepburnAudrey HepburnAudrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
makes an early film appearance in a small role as Chiquita near the start of the film. Robert ShawRobert Shaw (actor)Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
also made his first film appearance, playing a police laboratory technician towards the end of the film. - British 1960s children's television icon Valerie Singleton also had an uncredited part in the film.
Awards and honors
The film won the Academy AwardAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Guinness was nominated for the award of Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.