Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

In the late 1940s and 50s, Alec Guinness starred in a series of excellent British comedies ("Kind Hearts and Coronets", "The Man in the White Suit", "The Lady Killers", "The Horse's Mouth" etc), most of which were produced by Ealing Studios. One of the best of these was "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951), written by T. E. B. Clarke and directed by Charles Crichton.The plot? Guinness plays Dutch, a Bank of England employee who supervises the smelting and transport of gold bullion. Dutch is an apparently quiet, honest and unassuming man, a persona he has spent years cultivating. Dutch's long-term project to cultivate an "air of respectability" is designed to provide cover for the theft of one million pounds worth of gold. To say anymore about the plot would be to ruin the fun. Suffice to say that Dutch's plan involves Eiffel Tower paperweights, the assistance of an artist, two thieves and lots of guts.The 1950s saw the release of a number of classic heist movies ("The Asphalt Jungle", "Rififi", "Bob the Gambler" "Gun Crazy", "The Killing" etc). "The Lavender Hill Mob" is as good as, if not better, than most of these films. It's also unique in that it boasts a thick vein of humour, quintessential English attitudes and the droll "ordinariness" of East London continually subverted. The result is a film which operates both as a slick heist thriller, and a parody of the genre.Before its degeneration, Ealing Studios produced a number of fine, class-conscious films, some of which mounted a serio-comic reconstruction of "post-war Britishness". Adored by a populace caught in the slackening grip of poverty/austerity, these films often saw ordinary men striving for their dreams, working together or standing up against abuse. In "The Lavender Hill Mob" we witness a group of lonely outcasts who live buttoned-up lives but who long for emancipation. Dutch himself, a frail bachelor who is admonished by his bosses for "lacking imagination or ambition", relies on dog-eared copies of detective fiction and naive, private dreams to sustain an anonymous existence. When he (symbolically?) teams up with a local artist, though, Dutch's dreams are given wings. He moves from anonymity to the most famous master thief in all of Europe.Late in his film, Crichton hits us with a moment of ecstasy, Dutch and his compatriots running down the spiral staircases of the Eiffel tower. But though symbolically "at the top of the world", Crichton is careful to emphasise that our once-repressed heroes are quite literally hurling their bodies down the very building that was responsible for their riches; it is precisely at this moment of ecstasy that our heroes' plans begin to unfurl. From this point onwards, Dutch finds himself pulled inexorably back toward containment. A pre-stardom Audrey Hepburn has a brief role.8.5/10 – Classic.

I had recorded "The Lavender Hill Mob" and thought that this was bound to be good. The Guardian TV guide said it was a "sublime Ealing comedy with an Oscar-winning script." The August edition of Uncut magazine gave it 5 stars and told us that the director Charles Crichton "seduces with his charmingly angled take on post-war London". OK, that doesn't exactly have you foaming at the mouth with anticipation but everyone knows the Ealing comedies are brilliant. Everyone.Ninety minutes or so later I sat in my chair stunned into silence. It wasn't a revelatory stunning such as a really great movie can give you. This was a mind-numbingly bored, can't believe I just watched that, did they swap the real film for a bogus film, pass the whiskey bottle quick type of stunned. How could so many people be so wrong? Why have they lied to me about this "sublime" film? Is it me? I think that the facts speak otherwise.So first let me say that Alec Obi-Wan Guinness and Stanley Holloway act well and that there is a nice chiaroscuro effect reminiscent of German expressionist cinema during a scene in a cellar workshop at night. Other good points are…… oh, I'm sorry, there aren't any other good points. What about the bad points then? The whole thing is set in dreary post-war London and is faithfully dreary throughout – the clothes, the buildings, the people, the acting, everything is dreary to the nth degree. The plot is unremarkable, the script pedestrian. The lighting and camera-work is uninspired. There are only one and a half laughs in the entire film and they are more slightly and elliptically amusing than downright funny laughs. There are no pretty women (oh, sorry Audrey Hepburn appears for 3.7 seconds early on and then disappears but I didn't count this), all the men are nerds of the unfunny type and the action looks like it was filmed by the technical crew from Crossroads. I've seen Bergman films that are funnier than this.Recently I heard someone on the radio drawing a parallel between Ealing comedies and modern British comedies like 4 Weddings and A Funeral and Not the Full Monty. I think that they are right about this. In 40 years time people will see British films of the 1990's and be completely mystified as to how anyone could find most of them either interesting or funny. Weddings, Monty, Lavender Hill – all weak jokes based around the English class system that we are supposed to find endearing and funny but which actually practice a deep and nastily patronising attitude to the working and middle classes. There is no affection for ordinary people in these films just a thinly-disguised disdain. Come the revolution and I'll be lining these films up in Wembley stadium, along with all film trailers, for termination with extreme prejudice.

As this film starts an English gentleman, named Holland, is handing out money to a variety of people in what appears to be a rather refined club in Rio de Janeiro. Talking to the man next to him he begins to explain how he came to be in such a position. It started a year ago when he worked for a bank; he was responsible for transferring gold bullion from the foundry to the bank... he dreams of robbing a shipment one day but knows that it would be impossible for him to sell it without getting it out of the country. Then one day a new guest, Pendlebury, comes to live in the hotel he is staying at; a disheartened artist who spends his days making tourist tat... including lead paperweights in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, which he exports to France. This gives him an idea... if they can make them in lead why not gold? The two of them agree to the plan and set about recruiting other members for the gang; the robbery goes ahead and the gold is melted down and turned into the paperweights and sent to Paris in specially marked crates. It looks as if they have got away with the crime of the century... until they discover that some of the gold models have been sold by mistake and if they are found they can be traced back to the foundry... the race is now on for Holland and Pendlebury to retrieve them before anybody realises what they are made from! Like some other Ealing comedies this deals with apparently decent people who for one reason or another have turned to crime; and somehow the audience is expected to hope they get away with it. When we learn that Holland has been passed over for promotion because he lacks imagination we hope that they will come to rue that belief when his imagination leads to them losing a van load of gold! Ealing regular Alec Guinness does a great job as the meek Henry Holland and Stanley Holloway is good as Pendlebury. Sid James also appears as one of the gang although his performance is far more restrained than in his better known 'Carry On' roles; this suits the more gentle style of this film though. While the humour is of a gentle nature it is still very funny; surprisingly if there is a weak point to the film it is when things get rather slapstick towards the end. As well as laughs there was some excitement; the scene where Holland and Pendlebury run down the spiral staircase on the Eiffel Tower could have been from a thriller; it induced a real sense of vertigo that leaves ones head spinning! If you've enjoyed other Ealing Comedies this is a must see and even if you haven't it is a great way to pass an hour and a half!

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 Eiffel Towers.What is great about this film ,as others have said, is its simplicity. The film is short, the story is pretty simple, and it is just fun. Well made, but fun. It is a bank heist, but not a crime drama. It is a comedy, but not outrageous (most of the time). It is just a light story with enjoyable characters.Watch this film if you like bank heists or old comedies, because this is great for both of those. Maybe do not watch this if you are looking for Audrey Hepburn. Yes, she is in it, and yes, this is a very early role for her... but you can't say she "stars" in it or even call her a supporting actress. This is Alec Guinness all the way.