Heavens Above! (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: May 19, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
John and Roy BoultingRelease Date(s)
1963 (April 15, 2025)Studio(s)
Charter Film Productions/Romulus Films (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B
Review
A follow-up, of sorts, to I’m All Right Jack (1959), the Boulting Brothers’ Heavens Above! (1963) is atypically Capra-esque in its first-half, and overall has the tone of Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe, if filtered through the Boulting’s cynical, biting British satire. Star Peter Sellers creates a beguiling character that’s almost a kind of proto-Chance from Being There (1980), but the film is overlong at nearly two hours and, oddly enough, is rather over-produced, with its last half-hour too epic for its own good. One suspects the Boultings had trouble coming up with an ending; the last ten minutes venture into fairly elaborate science fiction that feels shoehorned in and is neither funny nor meaningful. The first hour of Heavens Above! Is much superior to its second.
Sellers plays Rev. John Smallwood, a vicar mistakenly assigned to the English country town of Orbiston Parva, home to a prosperous laxative/sedative factory owned by the Despard family, who exert enormous influence over the region. Obliging, diplomatic Archdeacon Aspinall (Cecil Parker) intended to send a vicar also named John Smallwood (hence the mistake), a harmless type guaranteed to not ruffle the feathers of the Despard family, particularly rich widow Lady Lucy Despard (Isabel Jeans).
Naïve but genuine in his desire to put into practice the teachings of Christian charity, Smallwood immediately causes a stir by appointing a friendly black garbageman, Matthew (Brock Peters), as the new churchwarden, and by allowing a huge itinerant family—a brood of unruly children, the adults lazy and petty thieves—evicted from an illegal encampment, property being developed by the Despards, into the large house acting as the vicar’s residence. However, Smallwood’s frankness with Lady Despard (camel passing through the eye of the needle and all that) inspires her to sell her considerable shares in the company to buy and distribute food free-of-charge to everyone in town, regardless of their income or religious affiliation.
Alas, no good deed goes unpunished, and very soon greed among the townsfolk sets in, causing a chain reaction of religious and racial intolerance and, in upsetting the delicate balance of British capitalism, creates a nationwide labor and distribution crisis.
Sellers’s vicar is rather fascinating, nudging his flock to apply the teachings of Christianity in practical terms, unconcerned that his well-meaning persuasiveness with Lady Despard upsets the British capitalist system of supply-and-demand. In providing free food to all, local butchers, grocers, and vegetable dealers soon face bankruptcy. The people of Orbiston Parva stop working and thus stop earning, and they’re upset when their television sets are repossessed for non-payment. Those not in need take advantage of her generosity—one lady arrives in a chauffeured limousine—and soon everyone is fighting over portions and hurling religious and racial slurs at one another.
All this results in an epic crisis with scenes of huge crowds overflowing Orbiston Parva’s streets and resultant national news media coverage a la I’m All Right Jack, but the Boultings this time don’t seem to quite know how to resolve this conflict they’ve created. The film was better when it more intimately zeroes in on Sellers’s Smallwood character. He has no use for political niceties or economic consequences; for him they’re simply irrelevant; a true believer, his calm manner and infinite patience yet dogged determination stymie everyone around him.
That should have been the focus of Heavens Above! all the way through, but the narrative loses its way, particularly in its last 10 minutes, when science fiction aspects rather jarringly enter the picture, Smallwood reassigned to the British space program on a remote island in Scotland, he appointed “Bishop of Outer Space,” effectively to get rid of him. These final scenes are unexpectedly lavish, rivaling the previous year’s Dr. No with its elaborate mission control sets, matte shots of the launch pad, etc. Indeed, the production overall appears much more expensive than the average “little” British comedy.
Sellers, Irene Handl (as a squatter married to Eric Sykes), Miles Malleson (as a psychiatrist), Kenneth Griffith (as a fiery Pentecostal reverend) and others from I’m All Right Jack return, along with that film’s star, Ian Carmichael, who has a funny, extended cameo as the “real” Smallwood. William Hartnell is amusing as the nosy, intolerant next-door neighbor, while Roy Kinnear has an early role as convict who takes advantage of Smallwood’s honesty. George Woodbridge, atypically not a publican, and veteran actor Cecil Parker (befitted with a wig and eyebrows that make him look like a late-career Ray Milland), are very funny as bemused church officials.
Kino’s Blu-ray, licensed from StudioCanal, presents the film in 1920x1080p, the black-and-white film mostly looking great—impressively crisp with deep blacks—in its original 1.66:1 widescreen. A minor complaint is that the transfer slightly under-scans the frame: the right side of the image displays beyond the edge of the photographed frame line, so that white lines and even film gate (?) markings are occasionally visible, but this is only mildly distracting. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono) is fine, and optional English subtitles are provided on this Region “A” encoded disc.
The lone extra feature is an audio commentary by British comedy historians Gemma and Robert Ross, who know these films and their casts and crews inside-out.
Most of Heavens Above! is quite charming, and Peter Sellers’s performance and character are particularly good, though the overlong film definitely loses its way before it’s over.
- Stuart Galbraith IV