The Lavender Hill Mob

The Ealing Comedies are amongst the best loved products of the British film industry. One of these is currently showing here in London, at the Odeon, Panton St. giving us the rare opportunity to see it on a (relatively) big screen.  After handing over an eye watering £11.45, I settled down to wait. Screen 2 at Panton St is typical of  any multi screen cinema and as such is comfortable enough but adds nothing to the cinema going experience.

As the lights dimmed we slipped into the seemingly endless series of trailers of “now showing” and “coming soon” films. These were a serious assault on the senses. Designed, as they were, to show off the power of digital technology. The sound, in particular, left me with the sense that there was blood trickling from my ears. I have no idea what any of those films were, except that one included rapping penguins and another featured Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher!

Eventually this madness stopped and the old familiar certification appeared on screen, assuring us that The Lavender Hill Mob was highly unlikely to offend anyone……….bliss!

Released in 1951, written by T.E.B. Clarke and directed by Charles Crichton, it is a beautifully crafted heist movie. Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) is a clerk in the Bullion Office  at “The Bank” who for twenty years has been responsible for the transportation of gold. His devotion to his job and his utter reliability make him appear to be the ideal man  for this position, but he has a secret. He has developed the perfect plan to steal a consignment and escape from the tedium of his life. The only fly in the ointment is how to dispose of the gold. Selling it on the post war British black market is far too risky but getting it out of the country seems like an impossible task.

Enter Alfred Pendlebury (the wonderful Stanley Holloway), the new lodger at the boarding house in Lavender Hill where Henry Holland lives. A frustrated artist, Pendlebury owns a small foundry producing cheap souvenirs for the British and European holiday trade. Put two and two together and you have the basis for a very entertaining 80 minutes.

Everything works in this film. The set pieces, the robbery, the wild run down the spiral staircase of the Eiffel Tower and the car chase are wonderfully handled. It is both funny and tense and all of the characters are likeable, how often can you say that!

The cast is brilliant, the two principles are well supported by Alfie Bass and Sidney James as professional thieves recruited to assist in the caper. There are many other well known names in the cast, such as John Gregson, Sidney Taffler and Michael Trubshawe and even more of those shamefully anonymous character actors from the period such as Marjorie Fielding, Clive Morton and Meredith Edwards. Blue Peter’s Valerie Singleton apparently has an  uncredited part although I think that I must have blinked while she was on screen, because I didn’t see her. There is even an early and quite brief appearance by Audrey Hepburn. But there is one star that hasn’t been mentioned yet.

London. This film is as old as I am and provides some wonderful footage of the Capital in the post war years. Surprisingly, Lavender Hill makes little or no contribution but there are some nice shots of Notting Hill/Dale. However, the real interest is in the City. The Bank, The Royal  Exchange  and most importantly the area around St Paul’s are very well portrayed. The amount of open space around the Cathedral, the result of wartime bomb damage, may well astonish some younger viewers.

So, this is not a slick, high tech, modern heist caper. There are plenty of those around and many of them are very entertaining, but this is something special. Seemingly old fashioned now, it was cutting edge in its day.

Go and see it.

From left to right - the former Bramley Arms, the site of the Old MacDonald police car crash - Lavender, you have to use you imagination for the rest of the title - St Paul's, not as depicted in the film!

The Festival of Britain

Visitors to the London’s South Bank between May and September this year will be able to enjoy a series of events and displays, relating to the 60^th anniversary of the Festival of Britain.

The original Festival was conceived as a "Tonic for the Nation” designed to boost the spirits of a nation still suffering the after effects of the Second World War.  London at that time was still blighted with bomb sites and a ruined infrastructure. Major redevelopment and reconstruction was urgently needed and it was hoped that the Festival would be the catalyst that would drive this forward. Additionally, it was seen as a way to promote Britain worldwide as a a leader in design, manufacturing and the arts. All of this from a country that was to continue rationing sweets until February 1953 and meat until July1954!

Conceived by the Labour government in 1947 and timed to coincide with the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, a team of forward looking young architects, headed by Hugh Casson began transforming the site  located between Waterloo Bridge and County Hall in 1948

The Festival was opened by King George VI on the 3^rd May 1951 and went on to be a great popular  and financial success. It should be remembered that although the events were centred on the South Bank, there were other associated Festival sites in London and throughout the country. It closed, as planned, in September of the same year having had over 10,000,000 paid admissions to the main sites in 5 months.

Despite the Festival’s popularity, or perhaps because of it, Winston Churchill and his newly elected Tory government loathed the Labour conceived Festival and almost the first act of that government was to order the clearance of the site (the Royal Festival Hall being the only being the only significant survivor).

There are a few fragments still to be found away from the main site, the largest being the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, conceived as a “live architecture” experiment in the spirit of the Festival. Battersea Park still has the remains of the Festival Gardens though, sadly, there is nothing left of the fun fair which soldiered on, in a progressively dilapidated state, until 1974. I’m pleased to say that I was taken to the Fun Fair several times during its prime period in the mid to late 50’s. There are reminders too in Oxford St 

 

and White City.

Of course, the Festival was only ever conceived as a temporary show, but some of the constructions could have been saved. I know that I’m not the only person to wish that the  Dome of Discovery and the Skylon were still there for us to enjoy.

This was never intended to be an in depth history of the Festival. For those interested in learning more you could do far  worse than starting here and here. Rather, this was to mark an important point on my own personal timeline.

The Festival and I are almost the same age. When my parents visited the Festival of Britain in the Summer of 1951, my Mum was already pregnant with me! I was born a little over 3 months after the  event finished. I wish that I'd seen it. I know I would have enjoyed it.

It’s a sad truth that there can never be another FOB. It just wouldn’t work in the modern world. I think we are all to savvy and cynical these days. Technology, in particular, is racing ahead at an alarming pace but it is there, in your face, all of the time, and of course, we haven’t just been through the nearly six years of global conflict which so coloured the views and the attitudes of  the late 40’s and early 50’s.

There are some things we should be grateful for!