Actors - The Lavender Hill Mob

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	Actors - The Lavender Hill Mob

The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 comedy film from Ealing Studios.

Overview

The movie was written by T.E.B. Clarke and directed by Charles Crichton. It won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay and Sir Alec Guinness was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film score was by Georges Auric.

Plot

Henry "Dutch" Holland (Guinness) is a timid bank clerk in London who has been in charge of gold bullion deliveries for many years. He discovers that he is about to be moved to a new department.

Within one week, he plans the robbery of the weekly gold delivery, with the assistance of his fellow lodger Mr Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway). They blackmail two petty crooks, Lackery Smith (Sidney James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass) into helping them and they carry out the robbery.

The plan is to melt the gold in the foundry owned by Pendlebury and export it to France disguised as miniature souvenir Eiffel Towers. But the plan goes wrong when one of the towers goes astray and is recognised by the police. After a high-speed multiple car chase through London, Holland escapes and travels to South America, whilst Pendlebury is arrested. In the opening scene of the film, Holland is seen being arrested by British police in South America prior to being extradited to Britain. It is not made clear what the fates of Smith and Shorty are meant to be.

Trivia

Lavender Hill is a street in Battersea, a district of South London, in the postcode area SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station.
Audrey Hepburn
makes one of her first film appearances in a small role near the start of the film. Reportedly, she was supposed to have had a major part in the film, but other commitments prevented this, so Guinness lobbied for her to be given a walk-on part. She does speak briefly to Holland, but what she says is virtually unintelligible. This was the first film featuring Hepburn to be given major distribution in the United States (most of her other early roles were in movies that were only distributed in Great Britain or Europe).
The film is being remade, with a projected release date in 2006.

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