Tight and reasonably slick for its year (even the dicey process work is pretty good) and country of origin, The Lavender Hill Mob is very nearly the perfect caper comedy. Indeed, it’s only marred by the irony of the fact that Alec Guinness was one of very few actors in British cinema whose films were wholly exportable to the U.S., which was then very resistant to most British movies. That this was not only exportable, but potentially lucratively so made it essential that the film conformed to the still enforced dictates of the 1934 U.S. Production Code. One of the absurdities — and there were many — of the Code was that crime could not be shown to pay. (The idea being that such would set a bad example to apparently weak-minded Americans, who would otherwise know — because the movies to them so — that crime does not pay.) As a result The Lavender Hill Mob had to be made in such a way that its — let’s face it — heroes paid for their sins. It’s frankly a bit of a bummer. But not enough of one to seriously damage the movie or dim its clever comedy.
Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present The Lavender Hill Mob Friday, Aug. 28 at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District (upstairs in the Railroad Library). Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com
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