Bravo Alec !

When I was young I quickly learned that my mother was different from the rest of my friends mothers. She was Scottish and that meant that I was taken to events and films
That most Americans were unaware of. One of the was Alec Guinness’s “The Lavender Hill Mob”. I saw this when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I have never forgotten it. One of my criteria for a good film is this fact.

I only remembered the Eiffel tower statuettes and famous spiral staircase descent from the Eiffel tower, but what I remembered stuck with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Years later I saw the VHS tape at blockbuster video and rented it instantly. It’s funny how movies like this often gather dust while the latest Arnold Schwartzenbicips movie sells out. It was defiantly worth renting and If I could get a copy I’d add it to my collection.

Guinness is wonderful as a long suffering bank employee whose job entails the transportation of gold bullion. You quickly see that his boss thinks he has reached the position to which he is ideally suited and has no other potential in life. His meager salary forces him to live in a rooming house populated mostly by old ladies.

BUT

Mousy little Holland is planning to rob the gold if he can just figure out how to get it out of the country. Along comes new tenant Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) who has a knick knack business and a foundry. The two hit it off and the game is afoot. To make Holland’s plan work they need two accomplices and it would work best if these accomplices were professional crooks. so they go all over town loudly mourning the broken door on Pendlebury’s safe and hoping that nobody steals the payroll money therein. Then they hide in Pendlebury's office with the window conveniently left open and wait for someone to rob the place.

Well sure enough they get two crooks trying to do just that and it turns out that the crooks know each other as well. They start referring to Holland as Boss and Holland suddenly realizes that after a lifetime of servitude, He is the boss.

The movie has many other twists and turns and I’m not going to spoil it for you by elucidating them here. I loved it and highly recommend it.

It’s too bad that Sir Alec Guinness is known to many people only as Obie Wan Kanobi or the collaborative colonel in the Bridge on the river Kwai.

Other old movies I recommend are:

Paradise Lagoon – Kenneth More
Wealthy family shipwrecked. Butler (more) becomes the boss of the island because he’s the only one who knows how to survive.

The old dark House – Robert Morley, Tom Postom
Funny murder mystery in Old Dark House.

Zotz – Tom Postom
Magic Coin freezes anyone in place when you say Zotz ! and continue looking at them

Tight Little Isle – don’t know the cast
Ship full of whiskey sinking. Sailors trying to reach shore to save their lives. Entire population of local Pub’s heading the other direction to save the booze.

Poscript:

It is a great tragedy that some of these films may be gone forever, allowed to literally turn to dust in film vault storage. When the last copy is disintegrated, this slice of life is gone forever.