The Lavender Hill Mob

For twenty years Holland has escorted the vans carrying a bank's gold bullion and nobody has noticed him. Which is exactly why he is in a position to make a perfect plan. He meets a man at his boarding house who casts souvenirs: models of the Eiffel Tower. They plan to take the gold out to France as ornaments. The subject is not the robbery but an invisible man wanting to be noticed once. Holland does not want the money; he wants to live his life somewhere else. The comedy comes from that modest aim turning into a large crime. The form is English comedy at its cleanest. Short scenes, detailed planning, every step shown to be reasonable, and then everything undone by a small mishap. The staircase sequence on the Eiffel Tower is the best-known passage. It is among the most celebrated Ealing films and won an Oscar for its screenplay. In a brief scene near the start an unknown Audrey Hepburn appears with a single line, one of the earliest records of her career. Alec Guinness plays Holland and Stanley Holloway his partner. Charles Crichton directs. Who it is for: viewers who like classic British comedy and heist films. Who it is not for: anyone expecting tension; the film never takes its danger seriously.