Heavens Above!
| Heavens Above! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by |
John Boulting Roy Boulting |
| Produced by |
John Boulting Roy Boulting |
| Written by | Frank Harvey |
| Starring |
Peter Sellers Bernard Miles Cecil Parker |
| Music by | Richard Rodney Bennett |
| Cinematography | Mutz Greenbaum |
| Edited by | Teddy Darvas |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films (UK) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 113 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Heavens Above! is a 1963 British satirical comedy film starring Peter Sellers, directed by John and Roy Boulting, who also co-wrote along with Frank Harvey, from an idea by Malcolm Muggeridge.[2] It is in much the same vein as the earlier collaboration between Sellers, Harvey and the Boultings, I'm All Right Jack.[3]
Plot
The plot features Sellers as a naive but caring prison chaplain accidentally assigned as vicar to the small and prosperous country town of Orbiston Parva, in place of Ian Carmichael's upper class cleric, with whom he shares a name. His belief in charity and forgiveness sets him at odds with the locals, whose assertions that they are good, Christian people are in Smallwood's view belied by their behaviour and ideas. He creates social ructions by appointing a black dustman (Brock Peters) as his churchwarden, taking in a gypsy family, and persuading local landowner Lady Despard (Isabel Jeans) to provide free food for the church to distribute free to the people of the town. However, all his good works lead to trouble.
Main cast
- Peter Sellers as the Reverend John Smallwood
- Cecil Parker as Archdeacon Aspinall
- Isabel Jeans as Lady Despard
- Ian Carmichael as the Other Smallwood
- Bernard Miles as Simpson
- Brock Peters as Matthew Robinson
- Eric Sykes as Harry Smith
- Irene Handl as Rene Smith
- Miriam Karlin as Winnie Smith
- Josephine Woodford as Doris Smith
- Joan Miller as Mrs. Smith-Gould
- Miles Malleson as Rockeby
- Eric Barker as Bank Manager
- William Hartnell as Major Fowler, town councillor
- Roy Kinnear as Fred Smith
- Joan Hickson as Housewife
- Kenneth Griffith as Reverend Owen Thomas
- Mark Eden as Sir Geoffrey Despard
- John Comer as Butcher
- Basil Dignam as Prisoner Governor
- Franklin Engelmann as TV Commentator
- Colin Gordon as Prime Minister
- Geoffrey Hibbert as Council Official
- Joan Heal as Disgruntled Housewife
- Ludovic Kennedy as Himself
- Margery Lawrence as Quarrelling Housewife
- Harry Locke as Shop Steward
- Henry Longhurst as Deaf Man
- Malcolm Muggeridge as Cleric
- Derek Nimmo as Director-Generals Assistant
- Conrad Phillips as P.R.O.
- Nicholas Phipps as Director-General
- Cardew Robinson as Tramp
- Gerald Sim as Store Manager
- Olive Sloane as Housewife
- Marianne Stone as Miss Palmer
- Elsie Wagstaff Lady on Parish Council
- Thorley Walters as Tranquilax Executive
- Ian Wilson as Salvation Army Major
- George Woodbridge as Bishop
- Drewe Henley as Doris's Boy Friend (uncredited)
The cast includes several noteworthy uncredited performers: A Hard Day's Night actor John Junkin, Rodney Bewes, who has a couple of lines as a milkman, and future Small Faces and Humble Pie singer Steve Marriott.[4] Sellers' performance is generally held to be outstanding, in a meatier, more dramatic role, similar to his work in I'm All Right Jack, released in 1959.[5]
Reception
The film premiered in London on 23 May 1963 at the Columbia Cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue (today known as Curzon Soho[6]), and although it disappointed the critic for The Times, who found it lacking the mild bite and satire of the Boulting-Seller film I'm All Right Jack,[1] it became one of the 12 most popular films in Britain in 1963.[7]
Analysis
An article in Garden History likened the character of the Reverend John Smallwood to that of an 18th-century picturesque guru William Gilpin: "The first act of the new reverend is to invite a group of colourful travellers to reside in the vicarage; the second is to convince an old lady to open her house and grounds to all sorts of poor vagabonds, scruffs and vagrants, characters who bring picturesque values to the noble scene. Eventually, a picturesque economic system based on free donation causes havoc in the village and the nation - the reverend is made a bishop and sent into space, in Britain's first spaceship. The film revives a character that one can safely imagine as a modern version of Doctor Syntax - cordial, dedicated, stubborn, fearless, not reacting against, but slightly diverging from, the established values of his culture."[8]
The misposting of the protagonist based on similarity of name echoes that in the Evelyn Waugh novel Scoop.
Like other Boulting films, Heavens Above! satirises contemporary attitudes and cautiously espouses a socialist ethos, while also showing the possible deleterious side-effects of such ideas, and the all-too-human tendency to take advantage of naive generosity.
The film is daring in its use of profanity for 1963; Sykes's character at one stage utters the line, "What if it pisses with rain?".
References
- 1 2 The Times, 23 May 1963, page 6, Film review: A Serious Film Comedy Gone Wrong - Heavens Above! - found in The Times Digital Archive 2014-03-15
- ↑ "Heavens Above! (1963)". BFI.
- ↑ "Heavens Above! (1963) - Articles - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
- ↑ BBC - h2g2 - The Small Faces - the Band. Steve Marriott appeared in Heavens Above!
- ↑ "BFI Screenonline: Heavens Above! (1963)". screenonline.org.uk.
- ↑ Cinema Treasures: Curzon Soho Linked 2014-03-15
- ↑ The Times, 3 January 1964, page 4: Most Popular Films Of 1963 - found in The Times Digital Archive 2012-07-11
- ↑ The Revd William Gilpin and the Picturesque; Or, Who's Afraid of Doctor Syntax? Author(s): Francesca Orestano Source: Garden History, Vol.31, No.2 (Winter, 2003), pp. 163–179
External links
- Heavens Above! at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- Heavens Above! at the Internet Movie Database
- Heavens Above! at AllMovie
- Heavens Above! at the TCM Movie Database