Heavens Above! (1963)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Roy and John Boulting had previously guyed the British army in 'Private's Progress', diplomacy in 'Carlton-Browne Of The F.O.', industrial relations in 'I'm All Right Jack', and the legal profession in 'Brothers In Law'. For 'Heavens Above!' they turned their attentions to the church. Or did they? According to the credits, the script by Frank Harvey and John Boulting was based on an idea by Malcolm Muggeridge, who called 'Monty Python's Life Of Brian' a squalid little film on its original release in 1979. It comes as no surprise then that 'Above!' is deeply respectful towards religion; its main targets are the people who go to church each Sunday in their nice hats and sing their hearts out whilst being generally horrible the rest of the week, those who take from the Bible what they want and ignore everything else. And if you can make a few bob out of it too, good luck mate.Peter Sellers adopts a Birmingham accent to play the Rev. John Smallwood, a well meaning prison chaplain appointed in error to a parish in the small industrial town of Orbiston Parva, whose main industry is Tranquillax, a pep pill cum laxative. Right away he upsets the snobbish locals by appointing a black bin man ( Brock Peters ) called Matthew as his new Churchwarden. Then he gives a home to a pack of scurrilous gypsies led by Harry ( Eric Sykes ) and Rene Smith ( Irene Handl ) who proceed to rob him blind. The last straw for the community comes when he persuades local rich woman Lady Despard ( Isabel Jeans ) to use her wealth to start a new charity called the 'Good Neighbour Fellowship', which involves giving free food to anyone who wants it. The charity is popular at first, but leads to shop closures on a massive scale. When Lady Despard's son ( Mark Eden ) puts a stop to the scheme, the angry townspeople rounds on Smallwood...The 'G.N.F.' is basically a thickly-disguised sneer at the Welfare State. The Boultings seem to be saying that the N.H.S. will collapse eventually due to over-demand. Well, we're in 2010 now and it is still here, having saved thousands of lives over the years. While objecting to the analogy, I still find this to be a marvellous film. The attacks on the Vicar's 'socialist' leanings are augmented by some rather obvious comedy touches such as him accidentally eating dog biscuits and Lady Despard's Peckinese peeing on his boot. Sellers again turns in a magnificent performance, drawing praise years later from his 'Goon Show' co-star Spike Milligan: "That character ( Smallwood ) is brilliantly sustained from beginning to end.".What about that supporting cast, eh? Let me drop a few names - Kenneth Griffith, William Hartnell, Cecil Parker, George Woodbridge, Bernard Miles, Cardew Robinson, Roy Kinnear, Miles Malleson - amongst others. Troopers all. One surprising thing though is the relegation of dear Ian Carmichael ( whom we lost earlier this year ) to a minor role as 'the other Smallwood'. He'd starred in almost all of the Boultings' earlier comedies, with the exception's of 'Carlton-Browne' and 'A French Mistress'.What lets the film down slightly is the ending in which Smallwood is moved by the Church to safer pastures by becoming the first Bishop of Outer Space. It belongs in a different film entirely. As he flies off into the heavens in a rocket, singing hymns, you cannot help but feel sorry for him. Hope he made it back to Earth eventually.

"Heaven's Above!" is a wonderful, well-crafted satire that mocks not Christianity but hypocritical and cold "religious" people. It is a British version of "In His Steps" turned on its head and inside-out: what if a sincere believer (Sellers) attempts to live out the gospel in the middle of a spiritually dead English parish? Unchristian attitudes range from the Bishop who complains that Rev. Smallwood (Sellers) "keeps bringing God into everything," to two women arguing over free food they have just (undeservedly) received as handouts telling a black man (Brock Peters) "You don't belong here" under a banner that reads "Love one another."The script is rife with topical political and social comments but the real focus is timeless: do people really believe what they say they believe? Is there a place for Christianity in a secular, materialistic society? The ending, which baffles some, gives the answer to this. All serious questions aside, "Heaven's above!" is a satirical, incisive look at human nature.

I shan't go on at any length, as others have already done the job for me. Instead I'll just drop in a couple of interesting factoids about this film.1) "Heavens Above!" was the third in a trio (a triptych??) of films satirising great pillars of the British establishment:The military;Industry/the trade unions;The church.The previous two in the series were "Private's Progress" (Ian Carmichael as Stanley Windrush - a fraightfully posh chinless wonder, drafted into the army for WWII and finding himself embroiled unwittingly in a grand scheme to steal great works of art) and "I'm Alright, Jack" (Carmichael as the same Stanley Windrush, now de-mobbed and dumped by his despairing family into the shop floor workforce at one of their factories, in the hope that he might learn the business). The Windrush family characters were dropped for Heavens Above, although Carmichael makes a small appearance as "the other Vicar called Smallwood".2) Fans of the Small Faces should keep their eyes peeled for 'Jack' - eldest son of the huge family of itinerant scroungers who take up residence in the vicarage. It's none other than cheeky cockney mudlark STEVE MARRIOTT, fresh from his West End stint as The Artful Dodger in Oliver !

While Peter Sellers does a good job with his role as a naive minister -- and most of the supporting roles are also well-played -- the film as a whole is not especially interesting. It has a few funny moments, but is mostly yawn-inducing. Most of the characters, from low-life rogues to the stuffy gentry, are cliches that I've seen a dozen times before. What saves this film from being a total failure is a talented cast -- too bad they didn't have a better script to work with.