Plot

A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipment of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country as miniature Eiffel Towers.

Holland, a shy retiring man, dreams of being rich and living the good life. Faithfully, for twenty years, he has worked as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury, a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury's smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle the gold from England into France. Soon afterwards, the two plant a story to gain the services of professional criminals Lackery and Shorty. Together, the four plot their crime, leading to unexpected twists and turns.—Rick Gregory <[email protected]>

For years, Henry Holland, a timid, bespectacled bank clerk, has been dreaming of getting his hands on the impregnable Bank of England's precious gold reserves. Nevertheless, after two long decades of service, even though Henry's got everything planned down to the last detail, the mousy gold bullion carrier realises that he can't pull it off all alone. As a result, Holland talks his artistic next-door neighbour, Alfred Pendlebury, into lending a hand to disguise gold ingots worth over £1 million as souvenir Eiffel Tower paperweights, and, before long, an audacious quartet of bank robbers embarks on a challenging and dangerous mission to strike it rich under everyone's noses. However, does fortune always favour the bold?—Nick Riganas

From his current home where he's lived for the past year, Henry Holland, a former milquetoast who has blossomed in this environment, relays the story of his thoughts of the previous nineteen years as a poorly paid London bank clerk in the gold bullion division, he overseeing the pouring of the molten metal into ingots and their transportation from the foundry to the bank vault. While he was seen as a trusted but ambitionless employee in his virtue and preciseness, he dreamed of wealth and comfort by owning that gold. The stealing of the gold ingots was not the problem in his estimation, but rather the need to smuggle the gold out of the country in knowing that no one in Britain could handle such hot items. His dreams looked to be realized upon the meeting of Alfred Pendlebury in he moving into the same Lavender Hill rooming house as Holland, Pendlebury a designer and manufacturer of tacky souvenirs. Holland was able to convince his new housemate to be his partner in crime by transforming whatever gold they would steal into Eiffel Tower paperweights - Pendlebury usually making them out of lead - to be easily shipped to Pendlebury's Paris distribution network without detection. But Holland knew they also needed true criminals in their operation, ones they could trust not to trust, the problem being where to find such individuals. Even with what he believed were all the pieces in place to carry out the crime, Holland and his Lavender Hill Mob may have faced the plight of any best laid plan.—Huggo

In the early 1950s, Henry Holland is a timid bank clerk in London who has been in charge of gold bullion deliveries for over 20 years. He has developed a reputation for fussing over details and panicking about suspect cars following the bullion van. He appears to be a man dedicated to his job and security. But all this is a cover: he has in fact hatched the 'perfect' plot to steal a load of bullion and retire.

The one thing that has prevented this plan from being put into operation is that selling the gold on the black market in Britain would be too risky and Holland is at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad.

One evening a new lodger - artist Alfred Pendlebury - arrives at the boarding house where Holland lives in Lavender Hill. Pendlebury owns a foundry that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in many resorts, including foreign ones. Noticing how similar the foundry is to the place where the gold is made into ingots, Holland decides that the ideal way of smuggling the gold out of the country would be as Eiffel Tower paperweights for Paris, and puts this hypothetically to his new friend: "By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men", "It is indeed, Pendlebury."

When Holland suddenly finds that he is about to be transferred to another department at the bank, he and Pendlebury quickly move into action. They soon recruit two petty crooks, Lackery Wood and Shorty Fisher, to help them carry out the robbery.

The plan is simple but clever and successful. Wood and Fisher carry out the hijack of the bullion van and switch the gold to Pendlebury's works van. Holland, who is supposedly assaulted and almost drowned in the robbery, becomes the hero of the hour. The police find themselves running around in circles, unable to track down the "master criminal" who is in fact right under their noses giving them false statements and misleading clues.

Meanwhile, Holland and his associates melt the gold in Pendlebury's foundry and produce dozens of souvenirs of the Eiffel Tower which they send to France. Pendlebury and Holland (who have adopted the more macho names of "Al" and "Dutch") then go to Paris in order to retrieve their disguised bullion from the souvenir shop on the real Eiffel Tower which they then intend to sell to a local fence.

The plan goes horribly wrong through a (simple) misunderstanding with the (French) lady at the Eiffel Tower souvenir kiosk who has opened a box containing not the standard paperweights but the ones made of gold and sold six of the towers to a group of visiting British schoolgirls.

Holland and Pendlebury pursue the girls back to the Channel port of Calais where the girls take the ferry back to England. All sorts of hold-ups, including problems with the customs men, prevent the two men from getting to the ship and the girls in time.

If just one of those towers is found to be gold then the game is up. Pendlebury and Holland therefore track down the schoolgirls and, in exchange for a similar tower and some money, recover most of the loot. One girl however refuses to return hers since she intends to give it to a friend who is a policeman.

The girl delivers the souvenir to the officer who is attending an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College. Also there is a police inspector who is investigating the robbery. As part of the case he checked up on Pendlebury's foundry and was told that many souvenirs bought in foreign places are actually made in England. A sudden thought occurs to him and he orders the souvenir to be tested. At that moment Pendlebury snatches it and he and Holland make their escape in a police car.

An increasingly confusing pursuit then takes place through London, with Holland using the radio in the police car to give false descriptions of the vehicle in which the crooks are in. Eventually, though, an officer succeeds in getting into their car and arresting Pendlebury.

Holland escapes to Rio de Janeiro where he adopts a lifestyle to which he is unaccustomed and becomes a pillar of the community. A year later he is telling his story to a British visitor before they both leave the restaurant handcuffed to one another, Holland having been found, arrested and due for extradition.