1957 - THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH aka BIG TIME OPERATORS

This film is one of those modest British comedies that were popular in the 1950's.  The  studio that comes to mind is Ealing where you would find actors like Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins in stories that usually emphasized a type of understated British humor.  Frankly a lot of these films weren't exactly laugh out loud funny it was always more like a minor chuckle.

The Smallest Show on Earth was not produced by Ealing Studios but it's a typical Ealing type of film.  A young couple played by the real life married team Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a run down movie theater complete with ancient staff played by Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles and Peter Sellers who is made up to play an old drunken projectionist.  The story involves Travers and McKenna's attempts to get the theater profitable so they can sell it to a more prosperous theater chain.  Let the quirky humor begin.

 

The audience gets lots of "screwing up the film" jokes as the drunken projectionist pushes the wrong buttons to make the film go to fast or to slow or getting the dialog out of sync with the picture etc. 

This is a film made relatively early in Seller's career,  He was always the master of dialects and he does his usual impressive job playing Mr. Quill the alcoholic projectionist.  Margaret Rutherford was one of those actors you hired when you needed someone to play dotty old ladies.  Bernard Miles was kind of a mainstay of the British cinema, he appeared in a lot of films. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna basically play a typical aka boring "working class" couple.

 

The director was Basil Dearden was a good prolific director who was adept at filming comedies or dramas.  Douglas Slocombe who photographed the Indiana Jones films late in his career handled the cinematography.  The Smallest Show on Earth is for the most part an inoffensive time killer.

The film was written by William Rose, John Eldridge, the running time is a quick 80 minutes.

1969 - THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU, amusing British comedy thriller

When you think about romantic leads in films probably the late actor Oliver Reed would have been about the last person you would hire for this clever comedy/thriller.  But Reed is certainly a presence on the screen as they like to say. 

In The Assassination Bureau, Oliver Reed mugs shamelessly and seems to work fairly hard at stealing scenes from the rest of the cast.  But Reed kind of meets his match in Diana Rigg with her amusing performance as the female lead and Telly Savalas who also knows a trick or two about grabbing attention.

The Assassination Bureau is about an organization of profession killers knocking off world leaders in the early 1900's for money.  Reed is the head of the Bureau, Diana Rigg is the heroic reporter who is out to stop Reed and the Bureau and Telly Savalas is the publisher of the newspaper that Rigg works at.

  

The film was directed by Basil Dearden who along with his associate Michael Relph the screenwriter /producer and production designer did a good job putting the film together.  Nothing in it is to be taken very seriously and the actors appear to be having a lot of fun which for a change they can communicate to the audience.

 

This is the kind of droll understated humor that the British can be very good at.  Probably the biggest disappointment in the film is the climactic battle on a Zeppelin.  This sequence suffers from very poor special effects photography, the Zeppelin looks very much like a model photographed against a very poor backdrop.  In spite of this sequence the film is still quite fun and it's also a very good looking film well photographed by the legendary British cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth.

The running time is 110 minutes, written by Michael Relph and Wolf Mankiewicz.

1965 - MASQUERADE - entertaining comedy thriller

Entertaining comedy thriller from Basil Dearden.  Cliff Robertson and Jack Hawkins are pressed into service by the British Government to save a young Arab prince from being assassinated.  It seems the British need the oil rights to the prince's country to keep their own economy running.  

Lots of crosses and double crosses, some decent action, location filming in Spain.  This is an entertaining film that knows not to take itself very seriously.  The film also features the one of the stars of Danger: Diabolik,  Marisia Mell who is very easy on the eyes.

Since Cliff Robertson was hired on as one of the leads, writer William Goldman was called in to rework his dialog at Robinson's insistence. Probably Goldman had a lot to do with the comedic bits in the film.

Written by William Goldman and producer Michael Relph, the running time is 102 minutes.

1961 -ALL NIGHT LONG, the Jazz version of Othello set in England.

Basil Dearden the director or someone got the clever idea to reset Othello in swinging jazzy London.  Unfortunately with the exception of one good performance the film is pretty much a bust.

Only Patrick McGoohan as the scheming Iago like drummer Johnnie Cousin, really gets into the spirit of the thing, the rest of the cast which includes actual musicians playing themselves are pretty flat as they say.

Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Keith Christie and John Dankworth ("where's Cleo" someone says) don't make any kind of an impression.  The jazz they play is that kind of semi straight stuff that mainstream films were the most comfortable with, no Miles or Coltrane allowed in this film.

An example of a minor talent overreaching himself with an idea he really didn't have the skill to pull off.  A real letdown.

91 minutes, written by Nel King and Paul Jerrico.