The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)

My love for English Comedy can be traced back to two sources: actor Peter Sellers and the comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus. Sellers tickled me in my youth with his bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau in a series of Blake Edwards films including A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964), THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (1975), and THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN (1976). But it was also Sellers's ability to play multiple roles in films that caught my attention in Jack Arnold's THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (1959) and Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) in which Sellers plays three different characters in both films. Monty Python's Flying Circus was like no style of comedy I had ever seen before.  Skits starting in the middle or having no conclusion, the use of funny, twisted words, and irrelevant sight gags (including the occasional nudity), the young Cambridge and Oxford comedian/actors Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam (the one American), Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin forever changed my sense of humor. Monty Python would move on from television to films with the hugely popular MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975) and MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979). I have no doubt that both Peter Sellers and the Monty Python group were inspired by a certain actor and some films that actor made for a small but creative studio in the late 40s and early 50s. 

The resurgence of English comedy can be traced to after World War II.  Leading the charge was actor Alec Guinness and the small Ealing Studios. Ealing Studios, although known as a thrifty company, would have a string of comedy hits after the war including KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951), THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951), and THE LADYKILLERS (1955).  Alec Guinness appeared in all four films.  In KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, Guinness would play eight different roles which would be an inspiration for Peter Sellers to play multiple roles in his films.  Guinness and Sellers would even appear together in Alexander Mackendrick's THE LADYKILLERS.  I think originally my plan was to blog about THE LADYKILLERS but somehow, I got THE LAVENDER HILL MOB in my brain instead.  Although both films have a crime element to them, they are primarily comedies.  Furthermore, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB has a connection to a more modern film starring two Monty Python members and the first appearance in a film by a young Audrey Hepburn (don't blink or you'll miss her as she makes an appearance in the first few minutes of LAVENDER).

Directed by Charles Crichton and an Academy Award winning screenplay by T.E.B. Clarke, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB opens with mild mannered bank clerk Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) living it up at a Rio De Janeiro cafe, handing out wads of cash to waiters, philanthropists, and the beautiful Chiquita (Audrey Hepburn in her first screen appearance).  Holland reminisces to a stranger sitting at his table how he came to arrive in Rio.  We flashback to London a year earlier. Holland works as a bank clerk, supervising the delivery of bullion from the gold refinery to the bank.  Holland has been doing the same job for twenty years.  Honest, underpaid, treated poorly by his supervisor Mr. Turner (Ronald Adam), Holland has a secret plan.  He wants to steal a shipment of gold bullion from his own bank.  His only problem is finding a method to smuggle the bullion abroad. One night while reading a crime novel to his neighbor Mrs. Chalk (Marjorie Fielding) at the Balmoral Private Hotel in the Lavender Hill section of London where they both live, a new tenant Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) arrives.  Pendlebury is an artist. Pendlebury makes and sells all kinds of tourist novelties including miniature lead Eiffel Towers paperweights.  Pendlebury shows Holland around his factory. Those Eiffel Tower replicas give Holland an idea.

Holland approaches Pendlebury with his plan to steal a shipment of gold bullion.  When Pendlebury asks how they could possibly smuggle so many gold bars without the authorities discovering it, Holland suggests melting the gold into miniature Eiffel Towers paperweights and ship them to France. Pendlebury likes the scheme and becomes his partner.  When Holland returns to the office the next day, Mr. Turner has good news.  Holland has been promoted and will be moved from the Bullion Office to Foreign Exchange.  Holland is mortified. He and Pendlebury now need to speed up the robbery before his transfer.  The men realize they will need some real criminals to assist them. Holland and Pendlebury go around town loudly discussing Pendlebury's trouble with his safe's lock with his company's payroll inside.  Their ruse attracts two safecrackers: Lackery Wood (Sidney James) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass). Holland explains their plan to the two petty criminals. Not surprisingly, Lackery and Shorty eagerly join the Lavender Hill Mob.

Holland lays out the plan which involves Pendlebury, Lackery, and Shorty. Holland's final trip will be to escort 212 gold bars. During the route, Holland signals to the security drivers he believes someone is following them.  The driver stops to investigate. Shorty, pretending to be a street vendor selling art, jumps into the van and drives off with Holland in the back. Shorty takes the van to Pendlebury's shop where he and Lackery unload the gold into one of Pendlebury's vans.  They tie up Holland as part of the plan, but the police are already snooping around, scaring Lackery and Shorty who drive off, leaving Holland blindfolded and clueless to his surroundings. Holland falls into the Thames River where he's rescued by two police officers. Holland is taken to the police station, questioned by Inspector Farrow (John Gregson) who Holland feeds misleading information to, and released.  The Lavender Hill Mob begin melting down the gold into little Eiffel Towers and ship them off to Paris. Pendlebury has the boxes marked with a special letter which means don't open. The plan is going along splendidly. But like most robberies, things begin to unravel. 

After biding their time, Holland and Pendlebury travel to Paris to pick up their shipments. On a lark, they go to the top of the Eiffel Tower where Pendlebury shows Holland where the lead Eiffel Towers are sold. To their horror, they discover one of their specially marked boxes open behind the vendor.  She has just sold six gold Eiffel Towers to a group of English school girls. Holland and Pendlebury chase the English girls all the way back to St. Christopher's School in London.  They convince the School Mistress (Eileen Harvey) the girls accidentally bought a test prototype and switch out the gold ones for the lead ones plus a ten-shilling bill. But one girl June Edwards (Alanna Boyce) won't switch her souvenir out. Holland and Pendlebury follow her after school to a Police Training School where an exhibition on Police Work is going on.  June gives the gold paperweight to her policeman friend. Surrounded by hundreds of policemen, Holland and Pendlebury manage to snatch the last gold tower. Chased thru the exhibition, they steal a police car and speed away. Pendlebury is caught but Holland manages to flee with six gold paperweights, eventually reaching Rio.  THE LAVENDER HILL MOB ends with Holland admitting to the stranger he's spent the last of the money. But there's one last surprise in store as Holland and the stranger rise to depart the Rio cafe. 

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB follows the classic heist film checklist but in a unique, English way. It's the anti-thesis of John Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, an American film that was released a year earlier in 1950 about a jewelry heist that unravels. In ASPHALT, most of the participants are criminals. With LAVENDER, the key participants are a meek bank clerk and an eccentric artist. The plan in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE crumbles when partners begin to double-cross each other. In THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, nobody mistrusts anyone to the point that Lackery and Shorty have complete faith that Holland and Pendlebury will return from Paris with the gold and split it fairly between the four of them.  Bad luck is the one ingredient that binds all heist films from Raoul Walsh's HIGH SIERRA (1941) to Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) to Michael Mann's HEAT (1995). A cop showing up at the wrong time. A member of the heist crew oversleeping or talking too much the night before. For Holland and Pendlebury in LAVENDER HILL MOB, it's one of the boxes of gold Eiffel Towers marked to remain sealed that is inadvertently opened at an Eiffel Tower kiosk.

Two sequences in particular help make THE LAVENDER HILL MOB rise above most comedies.  The first sequence is almost surreal with director Crichton pre-dating the French New Wave with his camera angles, editing, and effects.  Holland and Pendlebury, atop the Eiffel Tower, confident their scheme has worked are aghast to discover one of their prized boxes of gold bullion paperweights has not only been opened but six English school girls have bought them. As the schoolgirls take the elevator down, Holland and Pendlebury chase them, racing down the circular stairs of the Eiffel Tower, throwing bowler hats and coats to the wind, laughing hysterically and becoming dizzier by the moment until they reach terra firma. It's a kaleidoscopic foreshadowing that their foolproof plan has started to go awry.

The second sequence is an extended set piece and the finale as the two men plan to steal the last gold paperweight from the one schoolgirl who wouldn't exchange her gold one for a lead one. The schoolgirl leads them to all places the local police station where an Exhibition about Police Work is in full motion and her favorite police officer works at. Holland and Pendlebury audaciously steal the last paperweight right under the authorities noses then lead them on a wild chase through the police headquarters at first before they steal a police car. The police become Keystone Cops temporarily, running into dead ends at the exhibition or crashing their police cars into each other trying to catch the Lavender Hill Mob.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB thumbs its nose at authority institutions like banks and the police. Holland is passed over for promotions because he's humdrum and honest.  For twenty years, he never complains and does his job. But secretly, he's plotting against the bank not necessarily because they have ignored him. He's just ridden with gold bullion for so long, it's shine has corrupted him. Even after the robbery, the bank parades Holland around.  He's a hero to them even though the gold bars are gone. Little does the bank know their meek Mr. Holland was the architect of the robbery. The finale at the exhibition showcases how police solve crimes. But the perpetrators who have stolen the gold bullion brazenly snatch the last Eiffel Tower gold paperweight right in front of the authorities.  Their escape makes the police look foolish as they run and stumble over each other to catch them. Later, in the stolen police car, Holland uses the wireless microphone to send the other police cars on wild goose chases. Briefly, the police look like fools. But in the end, Inspector Farrow and his men prevail. 

Ealing Studios comedies seemed to favor elderly women as foils or comic characters.  In THE LADYKILLERS, an octogenarian landlady Mrs. Wilberforce becomes a thorn in the side of five bank robbers hiding out as tenants in her dilapidated house.  THE LAVENDER HILL MOB has no such central character, but it does have the white-haired Mrs. Chalk, a mystery loving neighbor of Holland.  Holland reads to her a hardboiled crime thriller when he returns from work one night.  Mrs. Chalk is very excited when Inspector Farrow and his men drop by to question Holland. It's like a scene from one of her crime books. Holland and Pendlebury both rent from the motherly Ms. Evesham (Edie Martin) who has signs around her hotel like "wipe your feet" and a curfew for her boarders. Just like Mrs. Wilberforce, Ms. Evesham has no idea that criminals are renting from her. 

For director Charles Crichton, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB would be his biggest hit for Ealing Studios and his career until Monty Python alum John Cleese reached out to Crichton to direct Cleese's screenplay A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988) co-starring Kevin Kline, Jaime Lee Curtis, and fellow Python alum Michael Palin. Crichton would be the perfect choice for A FISH CALLED WANDA as it had many elements similar to THE LAVENDER HILL MOB. There's a crime element (a jewelry robbery), eccentric characters (Kline's buffoonish Otto and Palin's stuttering animal lover), and an elderly woman with dogs who keeps getting in the way of Palin's plan for revenge on Otto for his sadistic treatment of his prized aquatic fish. A FISH CALLED WANDA would reintroduce the film world to Charles Crichton and his skill at handling comedy with a caper plot.

Crichton (with the assistance of Guinness) would introduce cinephiles to a future film actress and movie star in THE LAVENDER HILL MOB. Although she only appears for about ten seconds at the very beginning of the film, Audrey Hepburn makes quite an impression as the beautiful Chiquita with her black gloves, white suit, and beautiful profile. Apparently, Guinness was impressed with the young Hepburn as a stage actress and arranged for her small role in the film.  Two years later, the world would discover Audrey Hepburn in William Wyler's comedy ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) starring Gregory Peck and she would rocket to stardom. Ironically, Stanley Holloway who plays Pendlebury in LAVENDER would play Hepburn's father in George Cukor's MY FAIR LADY (1964). Also look for a young Robert Shaw (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, JAWS) in an uncredited part as a police chemist at the exhibition and Richard Wattis (THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL) as an Opposition Member of Parliament.

My generation knows Sir Alec Guinness who plays Henry Holland in THE LAVENDER HILL MOB first and foremost as the wise Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi who teaches Luke Skywalker about the Force from George Lucas's STAR WARS (1977).  Modern audiences might be surprised that Guinness started out in comedies like THE LAVENDER HILL MOB and THE LADYKILLERS.  It would be director David Lean who would change Guinness's fortune from comedies to more dramatic fare when Lean cast Guinness as the martinet Colonel Nicholson in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957). Guinness would become Lean's good luck charm.  Although not playing multiple characters, Guinness would be a chameleon for Lean with performances as Fagin in OLIVER TWIST (1948), as Arab Prince Faisal in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962), as Russian General Yevgraf Zhivago in DR. ZHIVAGO (1965), and as Indian Professor Godbole in A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984). Guinness's role as Holland in THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is a whimsical performance. Quiet, boring on the outside, Holland's a dreamer on the inside who almost pulls off the crime of the century. Guinness's Ealing Studio comedies are a master class in watching an actor hone his craft. never appearing the same from film to film. 

Stanley Holloway who plays the eccentric artist/sculptor Alfred Pendlebury in THE LAVENDER HILL MOB was a favorite actor of  Ealing Studios appearing in several films for Ealing including PASSPORT TO PIMLICO (1949) written by LAVENDER screenwriter T.E.B Clarke and THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT (1953) directed by Charles Crichton and also with a screenplay by T.E.B. Clarke. Holloway was primarily a comedic actor and his Pendlebury is one of his best performances. Like Holloway, he's a dreamer but much more of an extrovert.  Because Pendlebury's not really a criminal, his sincerity and honesty nearly bring the heist to an end right after its success. Rounding out the Lavender Hill Mob are British character actors Sidney James as Lackery Wood.  James would appear in a string of successful CARRY ON British comedies in the 60s like CARRY ON CLEO (1964) and CARRY ON AGAIN DOCTOR (1969). Alfie Bass was a comic actor who often played Cockney working-class roles like Shorty in THE LAVENDER HILL MOB.  Bass would also appear in Roman Polanski's comedy/horror film THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967). 

Some final LAVENDER HILL MOB tidbits. The full name of screenwriter T.E.B. Clarke is Thomas Ernest Bennett Clarke. Clarke's nickname was Tibby.  Special mention should be made of Producer and Ealing Studio Studio head Michael Balcon who ran Ealing Studios from 1938 to 1955.  Balcon was instrumental in Ealing's successful string of comedies including THE LAVENDER HILL MOB.  Balcon was influential in the early career of Alfred Hitchcock in the 20's and 30s and even produced Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS (1935).  Lastly, the beautiful black and white cinematography for THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is courtesy of none other than Douglas Slocombe who would have a prolific career capped off with his work as director of photography for Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and its two subsequent sequels.

In the end, my mistake of confusing THE LADYKILLERS with THE LAVENDER HILL MOB turned out to be a happy one. THE LAVENDER HILL MOB is a delightful, smart, entertaining comedy caper showcasing the English comedy at its best in the post-World War II era. I'm excited to view THE LADYKILLERS in the near future to see the culmination of Ealing Studios decade of classic British humor.