Lily, Billie Whitelaw, the enchanting young housekeeper, works for the kindly but quick-witted Dame Beatrice Appleby, Athene Seyler, in a quiet Kensington flat. The trio of lodgers—Major Albert Rayne, Terry-Thomas; Nanette Parry, known as Nan, Hattie Jacques; and Elizabeth “Pinkie” Pinkerton, Elspeth Duxbury—keep their days small and their ambitions even smaller, until a neighborly squabble stirs a mischievous desire for a brighter, if riskier, life. Their neighbours, the Spanagers, Lionel and Dora Spanager, Sydney Tafler and Joan Heal, quarrel over a mink coat—an argument that sets Lily’s wheels turning when the coat’s supposed benefactor, Dora’s husband, lies about a business trip and the coat is later “thrown” off a balcony.
Seizing the opportunity, Lily hides the coat for Dame Beatrice to thank her for a job well done despite Lily’s own criminal record. Dame Beatrice, initially delighted, quickly suspects Lily of theft, which sparks a plan hatched by the four fog-breathing conspirators to return the fur to its rightful owners before the lie unravels. What follows are a string of comic blunders and clever gambits, driven by a shared thrill rather than a desire for wealth, as the quartet—guided by the retired Major’s plots, and buoyed by Lily’s street-smart instincts—stage a return that seems almost heroic in its audacity.
Having proven that returning a fur can be almost as exhilarating as stealing one, the group resolves to chase a higher target. They set their sights on more furs and decide that crime, for a good cause, might be an easy hobby. Pinkie’s missteps nearly derail a raid on Madame Spolinski’s boutique, yet they still slip away with another fur coat. The escape, however, leaves them with more questions than loot: how to dispose of their gains and how to stay out of the hands of the law. The Major, ever the schemer, pretends to be writing a book on delinquency and persuades Lily to guide him to a fence; her answer comes in the form of a Salvation Army-run center in Limehouse, a twist that makes the plan feel both modern and morally conflicted.
Meanwhile, Lily begins dating Jim Benham, a policeman played by Jack Hedley, which compounds the tension as their activities grow bolder. When the gang corners a burglar hiding under Pinkie’s bed, they strike a loose bargain: release him if he can point them to a fence. Dame Beatrice traces a path to this fence only to discover, to her dismay, that the fence is in fact her own nephew Freddie, Freddie Frinton. Freddie pays Dame Beatrice £550, money that goes to an orphanage in dire need, and the crew’s conscience—such as it is—receives a small, humanizing jolt.
With the thrill of the caper still burning, they embark on a broader burglary spree that earns them headlines and a nickname in the press—“superannuated Beatniks”—even as Lily’s growing moral unease gnaws at her. She confronts the group, cautioning them about the danger of going too far, and they promise to pause their criminal escapades. Yet the plea for help from Dame Beatrice—a request to fund a children’s home—pulls them into one final, high-stakes plan: caseload a prestigious, high-society gambling party under the ruse of a police raid. Dame Beatrice poses as a gambler, while the rest of the gang dress as cops, staging a faux raid that becomes a real test when a genuine police raid follows mere minutes later. They escape with a handful of furs, exhilarated and unsettled in equal measure.
Lily’s alarm grows when she discovers the new fur coats in their possession, and Inspector Pape from Scotland Yard, Raymond Huntley, arrives to investigate a fur theft reported by Nan—though Pinkie’s earlier and subtler role as thief complicates the tale. After the inspector leaves, Lily extracts a stern promise from the quartet to end their kleptomaniac adventures. The group’s sense of purpose, already fragile, shifts once more as Dame Beatrice receives another urgent appeal for charity. The final act takes them to a glittering finale: a trip to the Crown Jewels where Lily, and those around her, must reckon with the moral weight of their impulse to steal.
As they depart the scene, Lily’s instincts—and the truth she’s started to suspect all along—hint at a larger, more tantalizing secret: the Beefeaters guarding the Crown Jewels look curiously familiar, and the film leaves us with the sense that their misbehavior, however charmingly packaged, might be catching up with them in ways they never anticipated.
