This film is one of those modest British comedies that were popular in the 1950's. Usually the studio that comes to mind is Ealing where you would find actors like Alec Guiness 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 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 who 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.
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