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List Price: $19.97Amazon.com's Price: $17.99 You Save: $1.98 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0013131193596
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Times Film Corporation
Manufacturer: Times Film Corporation
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Times Film Corporation
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 21, 2003
Running Time: 80 minutes
Sales Rank: 77795
Studio: Times Film Corporation
Theatrical Release Date: 1957
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
An amiable knockoff of the Ealing comedy style, The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) starts with aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his 'nice gel' wife Virginia McKenna inheriting a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discovering that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, which specializes in those 'smash 'em in the face, knock 'em over the waterfront' pictures, but the decrepit Bijou, known locally as 'the fleapit.' The initial plan, set up by lawyer Leslie Phillips, is to sell off the cinema to the owner of the Grand so he can knock it down to make a car park, but our heroes are put off by the arrogant bullying of the rival manager (Francis De Wolff) and succumb to the inept charms of the crazed, aged staff--drunken projectionist Peter Sellers, doddering commissionaire Bernard Miles, and dotty ticket lady Margaret Rutherford (who joined the team as a piano accompanist).
In the 1950s there was a run of gentle British comedies in which outmoded and broken-down local institutions (steam trains, tugboats, vintage cars) were saved by collections of committed eccentrics who despised the new-fangled bus services or soulless council bureaucracies and were willing to resort to a little larceny (in this case, arson). The Smallest Show slots in perfectly with the cycle, getting laughs from the Bijou's already outmoded program of scratchy Westerns and desert dramas (which increase ice cream sales) and sentiment over the staff's midnight screenings of silent movies that remind them of better days. It's likeable rather than hilarious, with Sellers and Miles buried under crepe hair and fake wrinkles competing to out-dodder each other and losing the picture to the inimitable Rutherford, who doesn't have to fake her eccentricity. Pinup June Cunningham is the glamorous usherette and Sid James plays her annoyed dad. --Kim Newman
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE.
I REALLY ENJOYED THIS DVD. THE ENTIRE CAST WAS SPLENDID. MARGARET RUTHERFORD IS IN A CLASS ALL HER OWN. I WAS SURPRISED WHEN READING THE CREDITS THAT THE USHER WAS BERNARD MILES. PETER SELLERS WAS GREAT IN HIS ROLE AS WELL.
I RECOMEND THIS DVD FOR ANYONE WANTING A PEACEFUL AND PLEASANT EVENING
Rating:  - An Entertaining Show
First off, anybody purchasing this film expecting a Peter Sellers vehicle will be slightly disappointed. This is an ensemble piece with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna as the nominal stars. Sellers has a smallish role as an ancient projectionist. That said, this is a movie that champions the movie-going experience even if you experience it at a fleabag establishment and the viewing fare are old cornball cowboy movies whose prints are scratched, faded, and out of focus. Since this movie came ... Read More
Rating: - A sweet era recalled in humor.
'THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH' may not have been exactly that since there were certainly smaller, but it was a case of a fictional small "electric theatre" (the British way of differentiating a movie theatre from a legitimate theatre or 'music hall,' as they designated their version of the American vaudeville). This delightful British film is as heart warming and sometimes hilarious as the other reviewers here describe, but it is the wonderful interaction between the story, the sets, and the actors ... Read More
Rating: - lesson in what acting is all about
THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH, the Bijou movie house, is well worth watching for its'lesson in what acting is all about. The enigmatic title is the only puzzlement of the movie. Otherwise, you get entertainment the British plain acting way that only the British seem to know how to do it. "Smallest" is a simple, delightful plot of what might go wrong with the best laid plans of inheritance when the legatees need to put an over-the-hill movie house back in business to compete with an up-to-date rival. ... Read More
Rating:  - Good movie but beware the inferior print
The one-star rating refers to this particular version. The film itself is a pleasant British comedy about a young couple's adventures with an ancient movie theater and its ancient staff. However, this is an extended-play tape of a bootleg-quality print with inferior picture and sound, and fans of the film will definitely be disappointed by the video presentation.
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