The Smallest Show on Earth

I am happy to read all the kudos from other film buffs for this little gemstone of a movie. It will seem corny and boring to those brought up on Hollywood in the past 30 years but if they would open up their minds to dry humor and sweetness there is much to enjoy in 'The Smallest Show on Earth.' First off the cast are top-drawer English comedians that are now extinct, sadly. Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles and Peter Sellars crown the story with their three highly eccentric and touching portrayals of the old hands at The Bijou, better known as The Flea Pit, an old opera house turned "Kinema". Bernard Miles, especially, gives a highly subtle and often moving portrayal of an aging janitor who lives on for a new uniform. Nowadays he'd be tossed in a home to rot, suffering from "dementia" or some such thing the medical profession has created to niche people for more convenient disposal. But in the days of the making of this movie people like old Tom (Miles) were allowed to continue with their lives, dotty as could be, but happy and earning a living, happy with his cats and his new uniform.

The "straight" couple, the new owners of the Flea Pit, are wonderfully done by the very handsome and under-rated Bill Travers and his real-life wife Virginia McKenna. Travers had the timing sense of Cary Grant, and was much better looking into the bargain. At 6'6" tall he had an engagingly masculine yet vulnerable way about him. He and McKenna have some of the cornier lines and the jokiness can be a bit "eye-rolling" but aside from that period humor this movie is filled with a dry wit that has always been beyond the abilities of Hollywood screen-writers to pen.

There is one scene in particular that sticks in the mind. The three old hands are alone at night in the old theatre. A silent film is playing, Mrs Fazackalee (Rutherford) is at the tinny old piano in the orchestra pit, Old Tom (Miles) is sitting with his cat in the front row. Mr Quill (Sellars) is in the control booth. Only Sellars speaks briefly to the new owners as they arrive upon the scene, lost in the "old days" of the kinema. Just the sight of Rutherford at the piano improvising music to the old love story on the screen, and Miles and his cat in the front row is enough to evoke tears. Longing for lost innocence I suppose.

This movie is loaded with a high humor, no vulgarity, sex or profanity comes into it. A very memorable little film that is long overdue for release on DVD. I was lucky enough to find a good quality VHS copy at Facets in Chicago in case anyone's had trouble rounding up a copy. An excellent miniature masterpiece portraying a more innocent and lovely period of time in our benighted 20th century.

Who hasn't seen a forlorn, forgotten little neighborhood theatre and fantasized about reopening it, and making it work? For Jean and Matt, though, who have no options after starting over in a strange city, it becomes a necessity. The hopeless crusade becomes the kind of poignant-yet-hilarious stuff that makes for an unforgettable film. Margaret Rutherford, Peter Sellers and Bernard Miles, as the former staff members recalled from retirement, have a magical scene together in the Bijou's darkened auditorium one night after closing time, recalling the old days with a silent film and the disused piano. Great stuff. I only wish the film was longer.

Imagine inheriting an entire estate and finding it consists of a run-down fleapit cinema just under a railway line! That's exactly what happens to Matt and Jean Spencer (Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna)when they receive a letter from the solicitor dealing with a long-forgotten great-uncle's estate.

With the beautiful and bizarre Bijou cinema taking centre stage, and its three odd employees (the wonderful Margaret Rutherford as Mrs Fazackalee; Peter Sellers as drunken projectionist Quill; and Bernard Miles as daft doorman Old Tom) livening up the proceedings with their eccentricity, the stage is set for a British movie with a warm heart and a genuine love of the silver screen.

With Leslie Phillips as solicitor Robin, Francis de Wolff as the rival cinema owner Hardcastle, and Sid James as one of his trademark wideboy characters, this film is a treat from beginning to end. Of particular note is the scene where the three long-term Bijou workers watch silent films when the audience has gone home - magical!

I saw this film on DVD. It was part of a package of 50 old films - it hadn't been restored and appeared much older than its 50 years. I had trouble reading the titles and credits.

What ever happened to all those old cinemas? This is one of them. In one scene the projectionist is having a horrid time and the film burns causing a "melt" before the audience. I experienced this at a local theatre in Papua New Guinea and it took me right back. And how the audience would tolerate it. Well sort of.

The scene where the three old codgers watch a silent film is very touching. In fact, I thought this would surface again in the film but it didn't.

It was delightful. The ending is not your stereotypical Hollywood film that we accept as the norm.

If you can get this film - it is well worth the watch.

The younger generation of filmgoers, used to the antiseptic cleanliness of the multiplexes, may not realise that "fleapits" like the Bijou in "The Smallest Show On Earth" did actually exist in post-war Britain. Starved of resources during the war and with restrictions on non-essential building in force until the mid fifties, many small cinemas were in a very sorry state with broken seats, threadbare carpets, antiquated projection equipment and even torn and patched screens.

It is against this background that this charming comedy is set with wonderfully eccentric characters played by Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford and Bernard Miles.

The principal character is, however, the Bijou itself. This was a set, the exterior having been temporarily constructed between two railway bridges in Kilburn, a London suburb. The rival cinema, the Grand, was, in fact, a real cinema - the Gaumont at Hammersmith, also a London suburb. If you look closely, it is possible to see that the new name is rather clumsily superimposed.

To someone brought up in the fifties, this film brings back fond memories. To the younger viewers it gives an intriguing glimpse into the past by showing a way of life gone forever.