The Smallest Show On Earth Details

In praise of fleapits everywhere, this charming comedy will bring back happy memories for anyone who pines for the days when going to the pictures meant something more than being conveyor-belted in and out of a soulless multiplex. Fondly scripted by John Eldridge and William Rose — the latter penned Genevieve and The Ladykillers — and deftly directed by Basil Dearden, it stars Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna as a couple who inherit a crumbling cinema. The cast alone makes the movie a must-see, and the sequence in which projectionist Peter Sellers, pianist Margaret Rutherford and doorman Bernard Miles relive the glories of the silent era is adorable.

Amiable caricature comedy with plenty of obvious jokes and a sentimental attachment to old cinemas but absolutely no conviction, little plot, and a very muddled sense of the line between farce and reality.