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The Lavender Hill Mob

The Lavender Hill Mob

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best comedies ever made
Review: In the golden age of the british comedy in the fifties there was a real explosion of creativity and talent all the way .
This cap movie is about a thief who steals a lot of gold equivalent to twenty millions dollars and decide melt in a very particular way .
A triumph of the highest british refinement in what comedy concerns.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A minor pleasure
Review: Like most people, I am most familiar with Alec Guinness in his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. Of course, by the time he made that movie, he had been an acclaimed actor for a while. The Lavender Hill Mob is one of the reasons for that acclaim.

Guinness stars as Henry Holland, a bank clerk who has reached middle-age with little to show for it: he's been stuck in the same job forever and lives a quiet, lonely life in a boarding house. Holland is also a dreamer, with a goal of stealing all the gold he counts every day and retire quietly abroad. When opportunity knocks, he answers and forms a small criminal gang to execute his scheme.

It's a brilliant scheme, and of course, things go wrong. Chance events and Holland's cautious nature creates trouble. It makes for a nice caper flick, if not quite the same caliber as director Chricton's much later movie, A Fish Called Wanda. Yet this is a pleasant diversion (look for a young Audrey Hepburn in a cameo) and there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour-and-a-half.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Get your geegaws here
Review: More than just a movie for Audrey Hepburn fetishists (yes, she has one line at the beginning), this is a smart, short, comedy, with all sorts of clever scenes, including some hilariously ironic scenes involving the police. Alec Guiness is perfect as the nerdy bank clerk who dreams of the perfect heist, and all the supporting characters, even the bratty little girls, are perfect. I especially liked the "auditioning" of crooks in the search for new co-conspirators.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: In the pantheon of films from British comedy's golden age
Review: Terrible special effects (witness the pixilated intertwining of automobile radio antennas,err... I mean car wireless aerials)actually improve this Ealing films gem. Seemingly more off the cuff than Kind Hearts and Coronets and without the social commentary of Man in the White Suit, but beautiful in it's own right. The scene with Alfie Bass sitting bewildered as a small time burglar required to become an instant pavement artist is one of my favourites.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wonderful movie
Review: This film representes the best of britsh comady. Also check out the cigrate girl a small part but even the fairest of ladies need to get her start somewere before taking a roman holiday

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: OK British Caper Comedy
Review: This film was a slight disappointment to me. I had always heard that it was a classic comedy from the Ealing Studios. I'm aware that the film won an Oscar for it's script and that Alec Guiness was nominated for his efforts here. The film is mildly engaging but seems to me a rather routine caper film. Guiness and co-star Stanley Holloway have a good chemistry. It just didn't live up to my expectations. A possible detriment is the Cockney accents of alot of the characters is rather thick and you have to strain to figure out what they're saying. On a trivial note, Christopher Hewitt, who played Roger DeBris in Mel Brooks' "The Producers" and the title role in TV's "Mr. Belvedere" has a small role as a constable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A very good comedy
Review: This is a must see for anybody you enjoy heist movies and comedies. The story is about quiet bank clerk (Guinness) who meets up with Effiel Tower souvenir maker (Holloway) Guinness comes up with a plan to smuggel gold bullion in the form of the Effiel Towers to Paris where they will both be rich. Things seem to be going somewhat ok, when they are outmatched by a bunch of unaware, giggling, English schoolgirls. The chase scene at the end is hilarious. One of the best scenes though is when Guinness reads to the little old Lady in his house. Got to love that underwear line, "I know the feeling well."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Funny Sweet Movie
Review: This is one of my favorites. I just wanted to cast my yes "vote" as the other reviews already said it all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A marvelous DVD version of a great Ealing Brothers romp
Review: This marvlous film unites the talents of two of the greatest English comedians of the forties and fifties (Guinness more or less ceased doing comedy in the sixties on): Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. Guinness is, of course, one of the most famous and distinguished actors of the past half century, but Holloway is primarily known in the United States for a single role, though by no means his most representative, that of Alfred P. Doolittle in the film version of MY FAIR LADY. In this film we see him at his more typical, more akin to his performances in movies like PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Guinness, who was so versatile that he had no particular role that was typical of him, shines as a long suffering, faithful bank clerk of whom the old expression "still waters run deep" is especially true. Behind his nonexpressive, stoic face is the soul of a thief who intends to rob the bank of a small fortune. Holloway plays the owner of a very small company that makes tourist trinkets for souvenir shops. They team up to form the Lavender Hill Mob (named for the address of the boarding house in which they both live).

As in so many movies, it isn't the getting there but the going there that's good. The plot takes a definite second place to the performances of the leads. One of my major complaints with Guinness is that the further he went in his career, the more he foresook comedy for drama. He was a subtle and brilliant commedian who excelled in subdued performances. Guinness could get more mileage out of a sly grin and his eyes than most actors can in their entire body. Holloway, on the other hand, is the master of broad comedy: exaggerated facial expressions, horrified poses, distraught reactions. Together they balance one another out perfectly. In scenes like their frantic and futile dash down the steps of the Eiffel Tower they are used to perfection.

Ealing Studios made a string of utterly superb comedies in the 1940s and 1950s, and this is one of my favorites. I actually prefer this to the deeply cynical and dark KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, and consider it on any grounds to be superior to THE LADYKILLERS (oddly marred by Guinness's inexplicable impersonation of Alastair Sim, down to false teeth, body padding, and a hair-do that mimicked Sims's--when you go that far, why not just hire Sim instead?), and an honorable companion to films such as PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, and THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT).

Audrey Hepburn had a number of walk on roles in British films in the very early 1950s, but didn't achieve real success until her stage work brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She is easily spotted in a bit role in this one, as the radiantly beautiful woman who stops to say hello to Guinness in the opening scene of the film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A marvelous DVD version of a great Ealing Brothers romp
Review: This marvlous film unites the talents of two of the greatest English comedians of the forties and fifties (Guinness more or less ceased doing comedy in the sixties on): Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. Guinness is, of course, one of the most famous and distinguished actors of the past half century, but Holloway is primarily known in the United States for a single role, though by no means his most representative, that of Alfred P. Doolittle in the film version of MY FAIR LADY. In this film we see him at his more typical, more akin to his performances in movies like PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Guinness, who was so versatile that he had no particular role that was typical of him, shines as a long suffering, faithful bank clerk of whom the old expression "still waters run deep" is especially true. Behind his nonexpressive, stoic face is the soul of a thief who intends to rob the bank of a small fortune. Holloway plays the owner of a very small company that makes tourist trinkets for souvenir shops. They team up to form the Lavender Hill Mob (named for the address of the boarding house in which they both live).

As in so many movies, it isn't the getting there but the going there that's good. The plot takes a definite second place to the performances of the leads. One of my major complaints with Guinness is that the further he went in his career, the more he foresook comedy for drama. He was a subtle and brilliant commedian who excelled in subdued performances. Guinness could get more mileage out of a sly grin and his eyes than most actors can in their entire body. Holloway, on the other hand, is the master of broad comedy: exaggerated facial expressions, horrified poses, distraught reactions. Together they balance one another out perfectly. In scenes like their frantic and futile dash down the steps of the Eiffel Tower they are used to perfection.

Ealing Studios made a string of utterly superb comedies in the 1940s and 1950s, and this is one of my favorites. I actually prefer this to the deeply cynical and dark KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, and consider it on any grounds to be superior to THE LADYKILLERS (oddly marred by Guinness's inexplicable impersonation of Alastair Sim, down to false teeth, body padding, and a hair-do that mimicked Sims's--when you go that far, why not just hire Sim instead?), and an honorable companion to films such as PASSPORT TO PIMPLICO, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT, and THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT).

Audrey Hepburn had a number of walk on roles in British films in the very early 1950s, but didn't achieve real success until her stage work brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She is easily spotted in a bit role in this one, as the radiantly beautiful woman who stops to say hello to Guinness in the opening scene of the film.


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