'The Lavender Hill Mob' - Movie Review

Stars Alec Guinness as Henry Holland, who we first see dining in an expensive restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, telling the story of how he got there to another Briton. He had a career for 20 years as a fastidious - and intentionally boring and annoying - bank agent who transported gold bullion. However, having set up this persona, it was always his intent to rob them. And when a new tenant moves into his boarding house, he finally has the method for smuggling the gold out of the country as Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) owns a company that casts metal souvenir Eiffel Towers that are shipped to Paris. Their blundering attempt to recruit a couple more criminals to help them work the plan is surprisingly successful, and they're off and running.

I find, in looking at Wikipedia after watching the movie, that "The British Film Institute ranked 'The Lavender Hill Mob' the 17th greatest British film of all time." This wasn't my reaction at all. It was gently amusing in several places, but most of the comedy was either too dry or too British to really entertain me. Guinness and Holloway are charming, but the movie simply didn't grab me. One small touch that was kind of fun was a 15 second appearance by Audrey Hepburn two years before she rocketed to fame in 1953's "Roman Holiday."