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Alec Guinness’ first Oscar nomination came thanks to this Ealing Studios caper-gone-wrong comedy. Like The Killing played as grand farce, The Lavender Hill Mob is an enjoyable little glimpse of two workaday schlubs trying for something extraordinary, if criminal. Hey, we all need our hobbies.
Guinness plays Henry Holland, a clerk who devises a nearly foolproof plan for robbing his bank of gold bullion. Naturally, it all goes sideways as the plan involves twists and turns that lend themselves to chaos. Disguising the purloined gold as Eiffel tower souvenirs is asking for trouble, and that’s exactly what these guys get.
These Ealing comedies have a few repeating tics, like contrasting the flirtatious nihilism or polite anarchy of their plots with the staid, stiff upper lip of British society, specifically the class system. The formula makes for enjoyable pieces of fluff, but a certain basicness begins to settle in with them that prevents me from openly embracing them the way I have other similarly minded films, like those of the Marx Brothers which also contrast polite society with destructive forces.
Where I can heap praise upon the film is in how smoothly it works, how thoroughly it presents and exploits its caper narrative, and gives Guinness ample room to deploy his deceptively simple acting technique. Wait, you ask, didn’t you just describe his work in Kind Hearts and Coronets as Brechtian? Yes, I did, as he was clearly working overtime and letting you see his effort in crafting eight distinct personalities whereas here, he makes his character as unnoticeable and generic as beige wallpaper before developing his layers and barely stifled rage.
On the surface, The Lavender Hill Mob doesn’t immediately read as one of Guinness’ greatest, showiest works, but it is one of his best for the minutia he brings to the part. And the film did deservedly win an Oscar for its screenplay, which is clever, witty, and going about the work of drafting the heist genre. And yes, that is Audrey Hepburn in one of her earliest screen appearances looking as lovely and gamine as ever even as this embryonic stage.
