The Lavender Hill Mob

Henry "Dutch" Holland (Alec Guinness) lives the life of luxury in Rio de Janeiro and spends an evening dining out with a British visitor. He narrates a story about how he changed his life by instigating an intricate gold bullion robbery after years as an unambitious London bank clerk overseeing gold deliveries. Henry meets artist Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) at his boarding house in Lavender Hill, who agrees to help with the plan. The pair recruit petty thieves Lackery Wood and Shorty Fisher, hijack the bullion van, and switch the gold with one of Pendlebury's works vans. Holland assumes the role of an unfortunate victim and provides misleading clues to the police led by Inspector Farrow. He and Pendlebury head to France to retrieve their share of stolen golden paperweights from a souvenir kiosk atop the Eiffel Tower but find most have been sold to English schoolgirls, leading to a wild chase across London as they try to recover the remaining paperweights, ultimately escaping with five after outsmarting Farrow.