Some critics believe that the last of the Boulting Brothers
social satires Heavens Above (1963) deserves to be remembered because of Peter
Sellers lead performance as the sincere Church of England clergyman who gets
sent due to a clerical (no pun intended) error to the wrong parish and I would
not disagree, but there is far more to the film than just Sellers award winning
performance. It’s a clever and humorous satire on religion, the establishment
and the working class and was called the Boulting Brothers most ‘human picture’ [1].
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| Sellers at his best. |
The film is set in a small country town called Orbiston Parva
that is over lorded by the Despard family, rich local landowners and
proprietors of a factory that provides local employment. When we first meet the
Rev. John Smallwood (Sellers) he is in a prison cell having been trussed up by
a convict he has recommended to be made a trustee. The prison authorities are
not unhappy to see their prison chaplain moved to another parish. But we soon
discover that there are two John Smallwood’s and the wrong one gets sent to
Orbiston Parva where chaos ensues.
Firstly he appoints a West Indian dustman as his churchwarden and then
to make matters worse he moves the very large and unruly Smith family into the
Manse. Following these two actions
things can only get worse and believe me they do.
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| Eric Skyes with a young future Small Faces star - Steve Marriott. |
This British movie has an exceptional cast that’s far to
long to list here but I would give special mention to Eric Skyes as head of the
Smith family, Cecil Parker as the Archdeacon who recommends Smallwood for the
Orbiston Parva parish and lives to regret it, Brock Peters as the churchwarden
and Ian Carmichael in a guest appearance as the other Smallwood. The films script was written by Frank Harvey,
who was also responsible for writing the scripts for I’m
All Right Jack (1959) and Privates
Progress (1956), and based on an idea by Malcolm Muggeridge who also
has a cameo role in the film.
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