The Lavender Hill Mob

film by Crichton [1951]

Written by Lee Pfeiffer

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Article History

The Lavender Hill Mob, British comedy film, released in 1951, highlighted by a much-praised performance by Alec Guinness.

Henry Holland (played by Guinness) is a meek British bank clerk from Lavender Hill, a street in South London, who has masterminded a meticulous plan to steal gold bullion from his employers. However, he does not know how to smuggle the gold out of Britain. When Alfred, a foundry owner, becomes a new lodger at Henry’s boarding house, together they plan to use Alfred’s factory to melt the gold into innocuous souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower.

The Lavender Hill Mob is one of the Ealing comedies, a series of witty and highly successful films that dealt with the exploits of unconventional antibureaucratic individuals in realistic settings which reflected the social conditions of post-World War II Britain. Many of the Ealing comedies starred Guinness. A young Audrey Hepburn has a small role near the start of the film.