Big Time Operators (1957)
"The Smallest Show on Earth" (original title)

A young couple inherits a debt-ridden old movie theater, appropriately nicknamed "The Flea Pit," and the three eccentric senior citizens who work there.

Director:

Basil Dearden

Writers:

William Rose (screenplay), John Eldridge (screenplay)

Stars:

Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers, Margaret Rutherford

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

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

Storyline

Jean and Bill are a struggling married couple with Bill trying to scrape a living as a writer. 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 incompetant staff who seem to have worked there forever. They set out with a plan to sell it but things don't quite go to plan.

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Plot Keywords:

cinema | movie theater | theater | seniors | rival business | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 March 1962 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Big Time Operators

Filming Locations:

Christchurch Avenue, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hallmark Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The viewer twice sees a close up of a bottle of whiskey, for which Quill has a weakness. Unusually it is not a prop label but a bottle of a genuine mainstream brand, Dewars. There was surely no question of product placement as Quill is clearly shown to have a drink problem.

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Goofs

The label on the box behind Carter, reading 'P F G Lembo' is peeling off the second time we see it but is stuck back on thereafter.

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Quotes

Hardcastle: A nice young couple like yourself, you've no business in this business. If you'd seen your great uncle what it did for him in the end! That old battle-ax Mrs. Fazackalee! I remember when she was a wee slip of a thing, pretty as a picture - a "B" picture, mind yuh!
[laughs]

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Connections

References There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

User Reviews

Have a good scratch...and watch it!

Husband-and-wife team Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna play a newly married couple who inherit a dilapidated cinema (and its elderly, incompetent and equally dilapidated staff), and try to restore it to something like it's original glory. However they soon discover that it's not going to be as easy as perhaps they first thought. There is competition from a huge modern cinema just across the street, which is in need of a car-park. The site of the old "Bijou" would be just the thing.

This is a terrific comedy (written by Basil Dearden), and features Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles as the cinema staff, and Leslie Phillips as the Bijou owner's solicitor.

Any American, or indeed any youngster, watching this movie might be slightly bemused, and consider it all a bit implausible. I can tell them that it's not, and so can any Brit over a certain age. When this film was made, every town in the UK had a "flea-pit" (i.e. it's very own "Bijou"). In the town in which I was raised, it was called "The Select".

Events depicted in this movie happened at these cinemas on a regular basis. The films shown were usually as decrepit as the cinema itself. (In the case of the "Select" they were usually the awful B&W "horror" movies which no other theatre would show. If the film didn't break at least once, or a reel was put on the projector in time, and/or was not in the wrong order, you were there on a lucky night.) For all of us of the age, to re-watch this little memorial to the old flea-pit, is a real nostalgic blast from the past, and I defy any newcomers to the movie, not to warm to it, either from it's occasional pathos and/or it's hilarious comedy. So go on, take my advice, have a good scratch, and watch it. The film may be fiction, but what you see actually happened!