O Mistério da Torre

A banker decides to rob his own bank.

A classic small British film that punches above it weight. Good cast get their teeth in to an Oscar winning script. The kind of film they should show at films schools to show how good films are constructed and delivered. One of the top 100 comedy films ever made - although delivers small chuckles rather than out-and-out laughs.

What hits you first about LHM is its smallness. It is a small film (78 min) made with a small budget about some small people. But their smallness doesn't stop them from dreaming the impossibly big - rob the Bank of England! In fact it is this very smallness & unobtrusiveness that gives Alec Guinness & Stanley Holloway - bank clerk & artist respectively - their chance.

The film, told in an intelligent flashback, is divided into 3 segments. First is the plotting. A mild mannered bank clerk meets a minor artist. Both want to get out of their seedy Lavender Hill boarding house & nondescript existance. Both look past their glory days. Yet together they have the opportunity to pull off a brilliant crime.

Then comes the heist. A surprisingly simple operation perfectly (almost!) executed. Finally the escape - getting the gold outside the country into the 'continental blackmarket'. Alas, the movie being made in the good old days when crime didn't pay, our heroes must suffer. But by then they have given us enough joy & adventure for us to forgive their one tragic slip.

This is definitely one of the best comedies Ealing studios made in the '50s (my other favourite is the vastly underrated 'Hue & Cry' where Alistair Sim gives a typical quirky performance & the tipsy 'Whiskey Galore'). Holloway & Guinness acted in many of them. They usually played very stiff upper British lip polite, eccentric, but excitable characters. In this movie they decide they are familiar enough to ask each other their first names only after they have robbed a bank together! When Holloway realises they can pull it off, his face is hidden in the shadows as he slowly tells Guinness, 'Thank God Holland, we are both honest men' - a line which I think summarises the entire movie.

The reason this movie is so amusing even today is that it is very tightly scripted (Tibby Clark won an Oscar for his effort) & brilliantly realised by the ensemble cast. As far as caper films go this has half the gadgetry of 'Entrapment' but twice the fun.

This is the 3rd time I am seeing this movie & I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. Please see this one!

Alec Guinness is the reason for that emoji with eyes replaced with hearts, right? I mean, seriously, I first met Alec Guinness while watching The Bridge on the River Kwai, and his turn as the seriously extreme Colonel Nicholson is one that will stay with the viewer long after the film ends. Guinness reintroduced himself to me in Lawrence of Arabia, another extreme role proving the man behind the roles that had blown me away was someone to see more of. I'm currently on a quest to see as many Guinness films as I can which led me to his turn in the 1951 film directed by Charles Crichton, The Lavender Hill Mob. In the Lavender Hill Mob, Guinness plays an unassuming bank clerk who decides to put a plan in motion to bring his life something more. In a classic British comedy, which exposed a whole new side of Alec Guinness, The Lavender Hill Mob is a film to see.

Holland (Alec Guinness) is a feeble, regimented, shy bank clerk, who is constantly reminded that he is not getting any younger. After 20 years, he has worked for the same bank as their agent who oversees the deliveries of gold bullion. After a chance meeting with a Mr. Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a maker of souvenirs, Holland realizes (in a very Leo Bloom a la The Producers way) that with Mr. Pendlebury's tools and expertise, the pair could steal gold from the bank and melt it into miniature Eiffel Tower souvenirs, smuggling massive amounts of money for themselves. After becoming committed to their ideas, the unlikely pair put a plan in motion with the help of a couple of career criminals, Lackery (Sidney James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass). Of course, the plan doesn't go as smoothly as it was first conceived, and it becomes a comedy of errors for the plan to succeed, a true treat for audiences.

British films are so fun, the comedic dialogue so unique to films that come from across the pond, is second to none. The writing in The Lavender Hill Mob is sensational, filled with jokes or subtle lines, it is a film that has something new to give upon each viewing. The comedic timing is also a standout in The Lavender Hill Mob. Each actor plays a great role and proves their talents for comedic acting with fantastic performances in The Lavender Hill Mob. Another surprising standout in this film was the score. People don't expect much in the way of a musical score in a comedy, The Lavender Hill Mob blows that stigma out of the water. The score, the comedic acting, the performances make The Lavender Hill Mob a film to be sure to watch, especially if you're tired of the mindless comedies that are so plentiful in American cinemas. The show stopper is Alec Guinness, I am not sure this wonderful film would be as wonderful without him. The Lavender Hill Mob certainly won't be the last Alec Guinness film that I see.

This is a gentle understated English comedy, a classic example of Ealing Studios' output of the 1950s. But paradoxically what makes it most remarkable is its sheer exuberance, the unconcealed glee of Holland and Pendlebury as they revel in the success of their audacious plan. Their first meeting after seeing each other at the police station, the drunken return to their rooms after their celebratory meal and of course the famous descent of the Eiffel Tower, their laughter echoing the giggles of the schoolgirls spiralling round and round before falling dizzily out at the bottom.

Painting and sculpture were Pendlebury's wings, his escape from his "unspeakably hideous" business occupation. But when Holland delicately introduces him to his own dream of twenty years' to escape - and not just metaphorically - from life as a nonentity, Pendlebury is drawn in. The scenes in the Balmoral Private Hotel in Lavender Hill are outstanding, and the sparse dialogue allows Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway to shine as Holland suggests to Pendlebury how gold might be smuggled out of the country. "Hohohoho; By Jove, Holland, it is a good job we are both honest men." "It is indeed, Pendlebury."

Later in the film, the plot stands less well up to scrutiny but Guinness and Holloway are easily able to carry the viewers' attention. Chases that turn into farces often don't work in this style of British film, but here again Holland and Pendlebury carry such energy and excitement that they fit in well, and I am sure that even in nineteen fifties Britain, large numbers of the audience will have grasped the ironic humour of the policeman singing "Old MacDonald," in addition to those laughing at the straightforward ludicrousness of the scene.

Aficionados of British postwar comedy will enjoy this film, and because it lacks the dryness of say, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" or "The Ladykillers" it provides a more accessible introduction for those who are new to this most wonderful of genres.

This is a comedy the talented Alec Guinnes did for the Ealing studio in the early part of his career. Of his Ealing days, he left us a legacy that is hard to surpass: "Kind Hearts and Coronets", "The Ladykillers" and this one, that comes to mind.

Directed by Charles Crichton and written by T.E. Clarke, this is a fun movie that in spite of the years since it was filmed, it still charms its audiences, young and old.

The background is a London, right after the war. The film is original in that it takes us all over the city to places that one can identify so clearly, even after more than 50 years! It speaks of how careful are the English not to destroy their monuments.

As the would be robbers, Henry "Dutch" Holland is a man with a plan. He recognizes in his neighbor of the Lavender Hill rooming house, Alfred Pendlebury, a kindred soul that will see his proposal of how to steal the precious gold bullion from the Bank of England. It's a big operation, yet, only four people are needed to carry on the job.

This is a comedy of errors, where the best laid plans go awry in the small details the gang hadn't planned. The sure thing becomes a dead giveaway to the authorities once Holland and Pendlebury decide to go after the souvenir one young student bought in Paris that is part of the loot. Prior to that, the scenes in Paris at the Eiffel Tower was an original sequence for a movie that relies on intelligence rather than in overblown special effects.

Alec Guinness is charming as the master mind behind the heist. Stanley Holloway, a great English actor is magnificent as the man with an artistic eye, who almost derails the operation. Sid James and Alfie Bass contribute to make the film the joy it is with their comic presence. In a small cameo that comes and goes so quickly, we watch a young and elegant Audrey Hepburn makes an graceful appearance.

This is a film for all Ealing fans of all ages.