In the Classical style Sound and Editing along with all other components of a film have the sole objective of establishing the story as the basis of the film. All other considerations are secondary to this objective. As such editing must be transparent and in no way intrusive leading the audience naturally along the normally linear plot. In editing the various means of moving from one shot to another (e.g. cut, dissolve, wipe) form a specific grammar to which an audience respond in a specific manner.  Sound in a classical film must again not intrude into the plot, hence dialogue is given consideration over diegetic sound effects, which in turn is given consideration over a non-diegetic soundtrack. At all points the sound must reflect the visual image presented, dialogue must accurately reflect the actions within the scene, sound effects must be appropriate to the scene and music (both diegetic and non-diegetic) must follow the mood of the scene.
The Lavender Hill Mob was one of a series of classic comedies made by Ealing Studios at the peak of its success. It was extremely successful both within the U.K. and abroad and gained an Oscar for best screenplay. As in all the Ealing comedies of this period the story is paramount and it is rare for any of the films to give any expression to the use of the medium of cinema beyond this.
The closing ten minute sequence of The Lavender Hill Mob consists basically of two chase sequences firstly on foot and then on four wheels. These two sequences are quite distinct although throughout both sequences the classical uses of editing and sound are epitomised.
The chase starts with a rapid series of classic chase cuts, where a cut is made from the protagonists being chased through a certain location to those doing the chasing through the same location viewed at the same camera angles. Thus the audience is given an impression of pace with the rapidity with which one cut follows another and a sense of how close the chasers and the chased are in relation to one another. This can also be considered as an extension to the classical ‘180° rule’. The important consideration in both cases being that the audience perspective of the action is not disturbed from one shot to the next.
The intial phase of the chase in fact contains 15 cuts in a 30 second time period, following the above scheme of flicking quickly from the chased to the chaser and back again. This reflects the natural human reaction to dealing with two points of interest, where the eyes would move swiftly back and forth between the two. As such the rapid number of cuts is not an impingement on the audience’s sensibilities.
This initial phase also contains the only non-diegetic music in the sequence. The music is a fast paced piano piece aptly suited to the initial phase of the chase. The diegetic sound consists of general sound effects representing the crowd amassed in the hall, and small snatches of dialogue both from the characters and from an omnipresent tannoy system. The dialogue here gives very little impact and is at a quite low volume in comparison with the general background noise. Thus the audience attention is concentrated on the movements and the action of the chase.
The second sequence of the chase involving various vehicles is considerably more complex. It starts with an establishing shot of the array of police cars of which Holland and Pendlebury are seen to steal one and speed of into the distance. This is quickly followed by two similar shots of the rest of the police vehicles being started and driven off in pursuit. This reflects the previous chase sequence but from here the style of the chase is changed.
In the initial chase sequence there were essentially two groups of protagonists, but in this secondary sequence the complexity is increased as the total number of vehicles involved throughout the sequence rises to eight, in a comic farce at the police’s expense.
A powerful combination of sound and editing is used to guide the audience through the events in this complex scenario, at each stage firmly establishing where each protagonist is located, what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Sound links are used throughout this sequence as a means to introduce each new aspect. The first use of this technique is to introduce the police control room ‘M2GW’. A radio message is sent from the police college control room to the police headquarters and a cut is made half way through the message so the audience perceives the initial half from the point of view of the message sender and the latter half from that of the message receiver. Thus the audience is relocated from one location to another in a simple cut. By identifying the new location using the sound link the need for an establishing shot is removed. The sound link is similar to a sound bridge but at each stage the sound is diegetic as opposed to leaking from one scene into another as non-diegetic sound.
This pattern is repeated in introducing each new police vehicle as well. Thus the first shot we see of cars U5 and U6 is an interior shot of the vehicle in each case featuring two officers, then an exterior shot of the car travelling along the road. This is technically a non-classical approach, as usually an establishing shot would be used to introduce a new aspect. For example classically a police vehicle would be introduced into the chase by showing an exterior shot of the police vehicle, either parked or travelling on the road, followed by an interior shot of the occupant or occupants responding to a call to the chase, as exemplified in dozens of Hollywood chases such as in ‘The Cannonball Run’ or ‘Convoy’. By using the sound link technique Crichton  manages to basically remove the classical establishing shots from the sequence and thus increase the pace of the chase scene. The only point at which this technique is not used is when the country driver driven convertible is introduced, here the more classical establishing shot of the car being driven along the road is used followed by the interior shot of the country farmer tuning his radio. Note that Crichton although subverting the classical technique somewhat in removing establishing shots has only classical ends in mind, i.e. to quicken the pace and involve the audience more within the chase scene.  Crichton reinforces the audience view of the chase by his extended use of the 180° rule. For each car the interior view of the car is always matched with its direction of travel when viewed from a distance. The only exception to this is when vehicles are viewed either face on or from the rear. For example Holland and Pendlebury’s car interior is always viewed from the passenger side in interior shots and when moving laterally across the screen it is always from right to left.
This technique is classically combined with cross-cutting in the crash sequence where initially two vehicles U5 and U6 are introduced via sound links from the control room, U5 facing from left to right and U6 from right to left. The next series of shots cut between the two vehicles travelling in opposite directions. This strong use of cross-cutting tied with the commentary from the control room (e.g. “U5 travelling West along Junction Road, intercept at Portabello Road”, “U6 travelling East along Junction Road, intercept at Portabello Road”), leaves the audience in no doubt as to the impending crash. In fact the crash is never actually shown but is imprinted on the audience by this sequence of shots and a post crash shot of entangled metal.
A similar technique is used to introduce two more vehicles into the pile-up.
From this point the cuts come less frequently as the chase slows down to its conclusion. As Holland makes his escape from the police, the next scene is introduced using a long slow (15 seconds) sound bridge, of music diegetic to the next scene. A dissolve is used to transport the audience 6000 miles and twelve months into the future as we see Holland telling the tale we have just seen in flashback.
At this point the entire pace of the chase sequence is lost as the final scene contains a single cut and is a minute long. A light Latin-American  soundtrack is diegetically played in the background, as the film returns to its initial setting and Todorov stability.
Overall in the final sequence of the film, Crichton uses sound and editing in a powerful combination and generally classical manner to provide the audience with a thrilling chase in which the audience is never lost, and yet the pace is never slowed. Even in his use of non-classical editing techniques the overall objective of using cinema to tell a story is never lost. By a clever use of commentary dialogue and tight editing Crichton manages to bring to the screen a classic chase sequence.

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