90
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- Inventive, economic, masterly.
- 100Time OutTom HuddlestonTime OutTom HuddlestonCharles Crichton’s direction is subtle but inventive – check out the snaking, near-single-take opening in a Rio cabana – and the performances, writing and plotting are faultless.
- 100EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonAlec Guinness shines in this hilarious British comedy.
- Helped by a peerless script and a great team of actors (Alfie Bass and Sid James as professional thieves; Stanley Holloway as an oratory-inclined artist-scamster), the film is both a joyous comedy and a tense thriller.
- 83The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThough [Guinness's] performance may not immediately announce itself as his best, it's certainly one of his most representative, a thoroughly recognizable character of unseen depths and unexpected capabilities.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt's tremendously good fun, though lighter in tone than Ealing's two scabrous masterpieces Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers, and not quite matching their elegant perfection; I've never been able to rid myself of the feeling that, however superbly set up, the aftermath of the heist itself is ever so slightly lacking in tension.
- 80The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherExcept for a couple of places, there is no hilarity in The Lavender Hill Mob. But its humors are so ingenious and persistent that it is one big chuckle from beginning to end.
- A hilarious tongue-in-cheek crime comedy, one of the finest to come out of the Ealing Studios during their most prolific years.