The Smallest Show On Earth
So many amusing escapades can happen when a middle-class couple take over a cinema!
Director: Basil Dearden
Cast includes: Peter Sellers, Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Margaret Rutherford
80 Mins / 1957 / UK
A gentle, frequently uproarious takeoff of Britain's neighborhood-cinema industry, chock full of entertaining vignettes. Real-life husband and wife Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna star as a middle-class couple who inherit a decrepit movie house. They also inherit the theater's doddering employees: bibulous ticket-taker Percy Quill (Peter Sellers), former silent-movie accompanist Mrs. Fazackalee (Margaret Rutherford) and doorman/janitor old Tom (Bernard Miles). Just when they're about to write off the theater as a loss, crafty old Tom comes up with an underhanded but effective method to allow the Spencers to make a huge profit on their shaky enterprise.
