User reviews

This is one of the classic British comedies of the 1960's Peter Sellers is superb as the Rev Smallwood a socialist priest mistakenly sent to an upper-crust English village. Eric Sykes and Cecil Parker excel in their roles, Sykes as the lay about, work dodging Smith and Parker as the holier than thou archdeacon. Irene Handle and Ian Carmicheal also make appearances in this film in their typical roles played to perfection.

This film is a satire (with elements of farce) on British society particularly the class system as well as religions role in it. The character are typically English and all show their true nature as the Rev Smallwood bumbles his way into a media frenzy without really knowing it.

All in all if you like British comedy this film is a must see but if you haven't lived in the U.K some of the lines and issues may be lost on you.

A classic up there with the likes of The Ladykillers and Lavender Hill Mob as the cream of British Comedy. 8/10

This was a marvelous little comedy that in many ways is reminiscent of the great Alec Guinness film, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT. Like this other film, the movie's main theme is unintended consequences that arise from some selfless and altruistic acts of the leads.

Peter Sellers plays a rather "straight" role as a well-meaning and decent Anglican minister. Unlike Inspector Clouseau and Dr. Strangelove, this character is much more subtle and believable. He didn't play the part strictly for laughs but was more of a characterization. Sellers was a truly gifted and amazing man in how he could seemingly become the people he was playing. His gentle manner and working-class accent worked perfectly to create one of the nicest and sincere priests in film history.

The movie is exceptional in that I think the movie can be enjoyed by religious and non-religious people alike. The film is very cynical and explores human nature in such a way that everyone can take something profound from the film. It is also unusual in that while technically a comedy, it is also serious social commentary. It had a lot to say about the teachings of Jesus and just how impossible it would be to truly implement them in a basically selfish world! Aside from a bad word used here or there, none of this should put off by the film. It isn't heavy-handed or preachy and isn't meant to offend organized religion.

The only reason the film only merits an 8 is because the ending is a bit of a let-down. It really didn't make much sense and was impossible to believe and because of this it really blunted the overall effect of the movie.

"Heavens Above!" is a barbed satire that cuts both ways, ridiculing organized religion for its complacence and its unrealistic aspirations and humanism regarding the perfectibility of man, especially the working-class kind. Though far from the funniest Peter Sellers comedy, it certainly is worthy in its own unique way.

Sellers plays Rev. John Smallwood, an Anglican prison chaplain accidentally assigned to the affluent community of Orbiston Parva. A sincere man of faith, Smallwood tries to drum up a little church fervor from his largely lapsed congregation, preaching the Gospel as Living Word rather than as aural wallpaper for weddings and funerals. Yet every earnest effort only stokes greater amounts of selfishness, even brutality.

"There aren't enough real Christians about to feed a decent lion," Smallwood laments.

At the same time, he must deal with the miserable quality of the clergy around him, like his own bosses in the Church of England hierarchy who strain only to keep their rich donor base happy and generous or the odd Pentecostal preacher who offers up damnation-filled sermons: "It's only the fires of hell that keep the churches warm."

"Heavens Above!" is a comedy of despair. If there is a God, it seems to say, He has better sense than to waste His time with blighted human riffraff like the Smiths, an itinerant family who leeches off Smallwood while feigning piety. Sellers is terrific, though in a largely straight performance, pulling us in with his naive gentility to the point where a lot of the gags turn painful when he is the butt of humor. The closest Sellers gets to laugh-getting - other than when Smallwood unknowingly snacks from a bowl of dog treats - is the opening, where he provides an uncredited voice-over as an American narrator introducing us to the uninspiring sight of Orbiston Parva. However much he stumbles and is tripped up, Smallwood is simply too nice a character to laugh at.

For all the apparent agnosticism in "Heavens Above", there's a strain of true religious belief in Smallwood's situation. Perhaps it's because the idea came from Malcolm Muggeridge, the last faith-friendly satirist England has produced. Smallwood is presented as a man of good works, but also doctrinal zeal. His scorn for the local pep-pill product "Tranquilax", it seems, is largely due to its proclaiming itself the "three-in-one restorative". For him, the only 3-in-1 restorative is the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

"Heavens Above!" is also interesting for the fact it catches Sellers just on the cusp of becoming an international star, still relatively round in body, making one of his last films aimed exclusively at his home British market. Like the later "Hoffman" and "Being There", this shows just how well Sellers could carry a film without resorting to silly accents or slapstick.

The film's directors, John and Roy Boulting, do well to set Sellers up with an ace supporting cast recognizable from other Sellers productions of the period, including George Woodbridge and Cecil Parker as a pair of agreeably venal curates; Irene Handl and Eric Sykes as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, heads of a scruffy, thieving clan; and Kenneth Griffith as the fire-and-brimstone preacher.

If only they cut that silly ending! There's other issues, too, like a penchant for slow camera zooms without reason, and the way the movie piles on Smallwood at the expense of comedy, but the out-of-left-field ending stings worst, an attempt at giving the film a falsely up note. Alas, when you really think about it, it only leaves Smallwood worse off than ever.

But you do care about the guy, a sign someone was doing something right. Obviously that includes Peter Sellers. With more laughs and a tighter ending, "Heavens Above!" would have ranked among his greatest films. As it is, it's pretty good all the same, food for thought in our secular times.

"Heaven's Above!" is a wonderful, well-crafted satire that mocks not Christianity but hypocritical and cold "religious" people. It is a British version of "In His Steps" turned on its head and inside-out: what if a sincere believer (Sellers) attempts to live out the gospel in the middle of a spiritually dead English parish? Unchristian attitudes range from the Bishop who complains that Rev. Smallwood (Sellers) "keeps bringing God into everything," to two women arguing over free food they have just (undeservedly) received as handouts telling a black man (Brock Peters) "You don't belong here" under a banner that reads "Love one another."

The script is rife with topical political and social comments but the real focus is timeless: do people really believe what they say they believe? Is there a place for Christianity in a secular, materialistic society? The ending, which baffles some, gives the answer to this. All serious questions aside, "Heaven's above!" is a satirical, incisive look at human nature.

An acid and scathing satire about a prison chaplain : Peter Sellers , he is a well-meaning and good-natured priest who is sent by mistake to a snoobish county parish . The location is ruled by the wealthy Despad family who owns the prosperous factory run by widow Lady Lucky : Isabel Jeans and her son : Mark Eden. Then Sellers accommodates a gipsy famly : Eric Sykes , Irene Handl, Míriam Karlin , and he unwisely opens his home .But good intentions of the new reverend go wrong and it leads to mayhem, strikes and chaos . Or how a humble Man of the cloth was given the Old Double Cross !

A biting and sharp satire on cleric life in England , dealing with a real critique to uselessness of charity , as well as differences between upper and lower classes and the Protestant Church too . Peter Sellers finely plays as the quiet, down-to-earth reverend who is wrongly appointed to a new post in a little town and finally in space . After the hilarious goings on of Private's progress , Brothers in law and Lucky Jim was a quiet departure for the Boulting brothers who here wrote, produced and directed . Here Peter Sellers is well accompanied by a great plethora of Brit actors , some of them considered to be the best English secondaries , such as : Bernard Miles , Isabel Jeans , Eric Sykes , Irene Handl, Milles Malleson , Kenneth Griffith , Gerald Sim, Mark Eden , Roy Kinnear, Thorley Walters of Hammer, Joan Hickson of Marple series and the Afro-American Brock Peters as priest assistant Mattew.

It includes an adequate and evocative musical score by Richard Rodney Bennet. Adding atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Mutz Greenbaum. This sour motion picture was well written/produced/directed from filmmakers John and Roy Boulting . They were two of the best British directors of the England post-war . As they made nice films wether realizing together or separated at times , such as : I'm all right Jack, Brighton Rock , Lucky Jim, There's a girl on my soup , Charlton Brown of the F.O. , Brothers in law , The Guinea Pig , Fame is the Spur , among others . Rating : 7/10. Decent British comedy with great cast.

Peter Sellers plays a minister with a new assignment in "Heavens Above!" a 1963 film written by John Boulting and directed by John and Roy Boulting. Sellers is the Rev. John Smallwood, and he's assigned to a new parish from his current prison ministry by mistake when he's confused with another Rev. Smallwood. He gets to the parish and really shakes things up, so much so that he practically brings down the entire British economy. He's well-meaning, but not very practical. He convinces the wealthy woman in town, Lady Despard (Isabeal Jeans) to give away food. Naturally the grocers are upset. Then he trashes the product the big factory in town produces, and their stock crashes. While he's at it, he takes in a huge family that was forced off of their property.

The film makes fun of religion with a straight face. Smallwood tells Lady Despard that she won't go to heaven because she hasn't given up her earthly belongings and followed Christ. He preaches God to such an extent that when the Despard butler tells him off, he does it with two different Bible quotes - for me, that was the funniest scene in the movie.

The British economy suffered greatly after World War II, and there are many films about it. This is but one, taking its place with "The Man in the White Suit," "I'm All Right, Jack," and others.

Peter Sellers is amazing as Smallwood, modeling the character on a former teacher of his. He's a gentle man, not given to temper outbursts, who stands by his principles, even though he's a complete airhead.

Very good.

I shan't go on at any length, as others have already done the job for me. Instead I'll just drop in a couple of interesting factoids about this film.

1) "Heavens Above!" was the third in a trio (a triptych??) of films satirising great pillars of the British establishment:

The military;

Industry/the trade unions;

The church.

The previous two in the series were "Private's Progress" (Ian Carmichael as Stanley Windrush - a fraightfully posh chinless wonder, drafted into the army for WWII and finding himself embroiled unwittingly in a grand scheme to steal great works of art) and "I'm Alright, Jack" (Carmichael as the same Stanley Windrush, now de-mobbed and dumped by his despairing family into the shop floor workforce at one of their factories, in the hope that he might learn the business). The Windrush family characters were dropped for Heavens Above, although Carmichael makes a small appearance as "the other Vicar called Smallwood".

2) Fans of the Small Faces should keep their eyes peeled for 'Jack' - eldest son of the huge family of itinerant scroungers who take up residence in the vicarage. It's none other than cheeky cockney mudlark STEVE MARRIOTT, fresh from his West End stint as The Artful Dodger in Oliver !

Sellers plays as devout a priest as you could hope to find. A mistake by the clergy results in him being sent to a small village, where his love your neighbour / give to the poor etc approach causes difficulties.

An interesting film which gives the impression that it's going to be a typical Sellers comedy. Whilst there are laughs to be found here - which come from the great British supporting cast rather than Sellers, this is more a biting and often quite serious satire on people in general. Sellers desire to do what the Bible says is portrayed in part as naive and people, who all claim to be believers, are on the whole no good, with everyone out to serve themselves - there are clear stabs at the rich, the poor and particularly the clergy within this sharp stab at society, but without that many laughs.

So not particularly funny, but actually quite novel and brave - doubt it would wash today

Peter Sellers is great as the Brummie vicar whose gaucheness brings a small country town to its knees in this famous 60s satire. It's difficult to pin down the film's target; perhaps the film's so likeable because it seems to get a dig in at everybody at the same time. Among the targets are: religion, capitalism, communism, and British society and mores. The moral of the tale seems to be that no matter your efforts or intentions, you're unlikely to improve on the status quo (and could make things a lot worse). So in the last analysis maybe it's Conservative propaganda.

The film stomps merrily through all the issues with fun effect and should've quit when it was ahead. The final segment is crass and takes off some of the shine.

There is a very rich wealth of comedic talent involved throughout this film. Sadly, the majority are wasted in shallow stereotypical caricatures which en-masse, eventually drag the fairly simple premise (answered very pointedly by the film's title) away from the pleasing light-heartedness of films like "Two Way Stretch" or the benchmark satire of "I'm All Right Jack" to something that ends up leaving a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth. The only reason to watch this film is to enjoy the work of Peter Sellers. The meek sincerity of his Rev. John Smallwood is unblemished throughout, but what should be the pointed nature of his eventual salvation at the end of the film jars badly. We witness that both the church and the odious parish emerge relatively unscathed, but Smallwood's deliverance doesn't gel and appears as though it were tacked on regardless when the film-makers couldn't think of anything else to end the film. Alongside Sellers, only George Woodbridge is particularly notable, playing very much against type as a fairly shrewd Bishop.

This film is great fun, well written and well acted. While the ending is unexpected, if you haven't seen it before, it is difficult to know how all the issues could've been resolved in any other way except as unresolved as it is here! They did the same thing to John Steed in the very last episode of The Avengers, appropriately titled "Bizarre", some six years later! That episode featured Roy Kinnear as the marvellously named Bagpipes Happychap who also features here amongst a wealth of famous faces including the original Doctor Who, William Hartnell, in the year that he took that role. Again, considering the ending, that too seems appropriate now and brought a wry smile to this viewer's face especially as another of the film's cast, Mark Eden, also appeared, in the title role of "Marco Polo", opposite Hartnell in that series!!! Peter Sellars is on fine form as the hopelessly idealistic new vicar as is Eric Sykes as a chain smoking butcher! Best of all is the plethora of verbal and visual irony which should be enough to keep any discerning viewer entertained!!!

Mild satire on corporate greed versus small town mores and morals has Peter Sellers nicely cast as a prison cleric who becomes the divine pawn in a clerical error: he is summoned to take over a neighborhood parish by mistake. This new vicar's 'radical' ideas in beginning a Good Will policy seem destructive to the Christian hypocrites in the slowly-progressing town...and once his actions take a toll on Big Business, the immoral majority turns against him. Sellers worked this small (but no less ambitious) British comedy into his schedule sometime between "Lolita" and "Dr. Strangelove"; it isn't the monumental comic performance one might expect, however the then-rising star is nevertheless congenial and appealing (albeit in a low key). Producer-director sibling team John and Roy Boulting have some light fun skewering the rich and soulless, but perhaps their final act takes the film's title too literally! ** from ****

Heavens Above! has so much going for it - a wonderful and very gentle performance by Sellers, a who's who of British comedy from the late 1950s, and the Boulting Brothers at the helm. This is a film that stands the test of time and remains both fun and interesting and a fascinating take on Anglicanism. In Britain, children of a certain class went to privileged school with the eldest son being shipped off to serve as an officer, or join the Foreign Office for the larger good of the Empire, and the second son would go to the City or the Church.

Anglican vicars aren't meant to be like Peter Seller's John Smallwood - who really does hold to the Gospel rather than doctrine, and is appointed vicar, by mistake, of a decidedly complacent and snooty town. What follows gently pokes fun at the double standards.

All in all, this remains one of Seller's gentlest, truest, and straightest characterisations. Like Alec Guinness he really does become the character he's playing - from the hair to the accent to the smallest gestures, but more than that, here, is the heart. He captures something ethereal that we would all recognise as sincerity and good intentions.

When he introduces true gospel values everything, of course, starts to fall apart. Historically, this is interesting in that Billy Graham has come to Britain and there is something of that spirit about this; but it is no way heavy handed or blunt.

Heavens Above! resorts to a weak ending - wish he'd been sent to the East End of London or Liverpool - but it remains a wonderful film well worth the time to catch when it comes around.

This film made a big impression on me when I saw it 30 years ago on late night TV and am glad to say that it's finally available in an excellent DVD transfer. What "I'm All Right Jack" did for unions and management, "Heavens Above" does for clerics and laypeople. It's an honest film about how religious and secular people react to someone who, innocently, tries to act according to Christ's teachings and ends up turning society upside-down. Peter Sellers as the naif Rev. Smallwood turns in one of his most appealing performances. Plenty of hilarious supporting characters (Roy Kinnear, Ian Carmichael, Brock Peters, Bernard Miles) round out the cast. Only script weakness is the last 10 minutes...but we will forgive them charitably in gratitude for the 100 minutes before that!

While Peter Sellers does a good job with his role as a naive minister -- and most of the supporting roles are also well-played -- the film as a whole is not especially interesting. It has a few funny moments, but is mostly yawn-inducing. Most of the characters, from low-life rogues to the stuffy gentry, are cliches that I've seen a dozen times before. What saves this film from being a total failure is a talented cast -- too bad they didn't have a better script to work with.

Heaven's Above clearly has some clever satirical ideas in play, but the execution of the film just seems to leave the story content totally unbalanced. On top of that, it has an ending that appears to indicate the script writers didn't know how to conclude the story at all.

Peter Sellers is the best thing about the movie and yet in it, he plays one of his straightest roles ever, as the well-intentioned minister trying to get his parish to behave in a fashion indicative of the messages interpreted from the Christian gospels. One of the movie's failings is that, though the ostensible lead, Sellers's character, the Rev. Smallwood really isn't in the movie that much. He is more of a connecting character to the actions and reactions of the (too) big cast of supporting characters. I actually wonder whether it was the underuse of his Smallwood in this film, that gave rise to his propensity to play multiple characters in later films.

The cast is so large that the movie ends up playing out as though it was some sort of faux documentary, with the knock on effects of Smallwood's intended kindly and charitable actions being felt across the whole of British society. The funniest segments involve gentle fun being poked at the church establishment itself, but the breadth and depth of observation is just too large and the Rev. Smallwood goes missing for critically long periods of time, while we observe the ho-hum behaviour of countless minor characters.

The best that can be said about the ending is that it's just plain silly; the worst being that the writers and directors realised they'd created a gargantuan creature that had just escaped their collective control.

As an aside, Sellers is good as mentioned, but I wonder why he uses a faintly (English) South African accent throughout Heavens Above. As with the ending, there just never seems to be any explanation or reason for its use, other than he may have just wanted to do it.

Several reviewers think this movie has a weak ending. I don't. The message it seems to be aiming to convey is that applying Christian precepts to ordinary everyday life in a consumer-oriented capitalist society can only lead to martyrdom. In this case the only reason that the Reverend Smallwood isn't crucified is because he's sent heavenwards, or chooses to depart, by more modern means. I wasn't sure if he was expected to return. I'll have to watch it again.

It was slightly reminiscent of Viridiana, which came out two years earlier, and was judged blasphemous by the Vatican. Franco tried to ban it, which some sections of society might have felt ought to be the fate of Heavens Above. It was also slightly reminiscent of the earlier films of H.G.Wells' depictions of the incompatibility of virtuous ideals and powers in a corruptible world. All fairly thought-provoking.

Peter Sellers was in my opinion remarkably effective in the role of Smallwood. Wikipedia informs me that Sellers thought of himself as Jewish, because he had a Jewish mother, but his father was a Protestant and he was educated at a Roman Catholic school. Perhaps this mixture influenced his performance. Rather a unique role for him. Sellers' films in Britain were far better and more interesting than his work in America. He had better directors in Britain, and the director makes the film.

I liked Peter Sellers in his well-known films and I started to watch the harder-to-find movies in his repertoire. I am starting to hate every movie he was in. His satire falls flat throughout his movies and he makes irrelevant points about society. Many people blame the script but he chose to do the movie with this inept script. Humor is lacking throughout this movie and his many other films.

First of all, the "satire" in this movie is directed at the stereotypical stuffed-shirts but this movie then builds up the stereotypical low-lifes as heroes. It is a cliché through and through and it is poorly done. The movie was plodding along and bored me to no end.

I don't understand why so many people think that any satire of Peter Sellers is funny. There is nothing interesting in this movie and every joke falls flat because of bad timing, bad acting or whatever reason.

For example, a man, who is on the dole and refuses to work, loses his home but the vicar allows them to live in the vicarage, where his large family spreads junk around it and continues to steal and cause trouble just like before they lost their other home. This family doesn't need to learn anything but the stuffed-shirts can't do anything right. This type of humor is one-sided at its best and superficial at its worst.