🎥 Smallest Show on Earth - 1957 - Virginia McKenna - 🎥 FULL MOVIE

✅ The Story ...

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Matt and Jean (Travers and McKenna) are a young couple with a longing to visit exotic places such as Samarkand. Matt inherits a cinema from his great uncle.

When they look over their new property, they first mistake the modern Grand for it. They are soon disillusioned to learn that the cinema they actually own is the old decrepit Bijou Kinema (nicknamed "the flea pit"), which is sandwiched between two railway bridges.

Along with the cinema come three long-time employees: Mrs. Fazackalee (Rutherford), the cashier and bookkeeper; Mr. Quill (Sellers), the projectionist; and Old Tom (Miles) the commissionaire, doorkeeper and usher.

Robin (Phillips), their solicitor, informs them that the Grand's owner, Mr Hardcastle (De Wolff), had offered to buy the Bijou from Matt's great uncle for five thousand pounds in order to construct a car park for his nearby cinema. When they see their competitor, however, he only offers them five hundred, thinking they have no choice but to accept.

Instead, on Robin's advice, they pretend to want to reopen the Bijou in order to force Hardcastle to raise his offer. At first, they seem to be succeeding, but then Old Tom inadvertently lets slip their overheard plan and Hardcastle refuses to budge. They decide to carry on with their bluff and go through with the opening.

After a few mishaps, the business flourishes, especially after Matt employs the curvaceous Marlene Hogg (Cunningham) to sell ice creams and other treats at the interval. To increase sales, the heat in the theatre was turned up during the showing of a film where parched actors crawled across a desert.

Hardcastle counters by slipping a bottle of whisky into the next shipment of film reels for Quill, who has a drinking problem. He eventually succumbs to the temptation, leaving Matt to try unsuccessfully to substitute for him; Matt is unable to work the antiquated projectors properly, and they are forced to refund the customers' money.

Matt and Jean are ready to give up (with Old Tom eavesdropping again, this time hearing Matt say that he had often wished the Grand were burnt to the ground) only to wake up the next morning to find that the Grand has burned down (Old Tom was last seen carrying a can of fuel oil out of the door).

Hardcastle is forced to pay ten thousand pounds for the Bijou in order to stay in business while his cinema is being rebuilt. As an added condition, he has to keep the three staff on as employees.

Just as Matt and Jean are leaving on the train, Old Tom tells Matt that "It was the only way, wasn't it?", implying he committed arson. Alarmed, they decide to write him a letter asking him to clarify his remark, but instead send him a postcard... from Samarkand.

✅ Credits :

Directed by : Basil Dearden
Written by : William Rose, John Eldridge
Produced by : Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder and Michael Relph
Cinematography : Douglas Slocombe
Edited by : Oswald Hafenrichter
Music by : William Alwyn
Production Companies : Hallmark Productions
Distributed by : British Lion Films (UK)
Release Dates : 9 April 1957

✅ Cast :

Virginia McKenna as Jean Spenser
Bill Travers as Matt Spenser
Margaret Rutherford as Mrs. Fazackalee
Peter Sellers as Percy Quill
Bernard Miles as Old Tom
Francis de Wolff as Albert Hardcastle
Leslie Phillips as Robin Carter
June Cunningham as Marlene Hogg
Sid James as Mr. Hogg
George Cross as Commissionaire
George Cormack as Bell
Stringer Davis as Emmett
Michael Corcoran as Taxi Driver

Film Information Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smallest_Show_on_Earth

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