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The Smallest Show on Earth The Smallest Show on Earth

Basil Dearden / United Kingdom / 1957 / 80 min / English

The slightly eccentric film shot in the vein of the British 1950s comedies is a humorous take on the good days of cinema, the small and popular movie theatres with a character.

Jean and Bill are a struggling married couple. Out of the blue they receive a telegram informing them that Bill's long-lost uncle has died and left them his business, a cinema in the town of Sloughborough. They pack their bags and travel to Sloughborough expecting to sell the cinema to gain a huge inheritance, however, they discover the cinema is falling apart and is run by a comically incompetent staff who seem to have worked there forever. They set out with a plan to sell it but things don't go quite as expected.

"This eccentric film, in the vein of Ealing comedies, offers a fun reminder of the days of cinema before we all started driving to out-of-town complexes, owned by faceless corporations. /.../ Very much an ensemble piece, it relies heavily on sight gags and cinema business, such as the film running too quickly, or snapping part way through, to provide the best laughs - no less fun for all that."(Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film)

Basil Dearden
Born in 1911 in Essex, England, died in 1971. A former stage director, Basil Dearden entered film as assistant director and made his feature debut in 1943. He eventually became associated with writer/producer Michael Relph, and together the two made films on themes not often tackled in British films, such as homosexuality and race relations. In the '60s Dearden embarked on a new phase of his career by directing large-scale action pictures.

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