Everything about Heavens Above totally explained
Heavens Above! is a
1963 black-and-white
British satirical comedy starring
Peter Sellers, directed by
John and Roy Boulting, who also co-wrote along with
Frank Harvey, from an idea by
Malcolm Muggeridge. It is in much the same vein as earlier collaborations between Sellers, Harvey and the Boultings,
Private's Progress and
I'm All Right Jack.
The plot features Sellers as a humble, caring
vicar accidentally assigned to the comfortable country village of
Orbiston Parva, in place of
Ian Carmichael's upper-class cleric, with whom he shares a name. His belief in
charity and
forgiveness set him at odds with the selfish locals, whose assertions that they're good,
Christian people are belied by their behaviour and ideas. He creates social ructions by hiring a new churchwarden, giving away food, taking in a homeless lower class family, and opposing the building of a new
factory in the village. However, all his good works lead to trouble.
Like the other Boulting/Sellers films,
Heavens Above! satirises contemporary attitudes and cautiously espouses a
socialist ethos, while also showing the possible deleterious side-effects of such ideas, and the all-too-human tendency to take advantage of naive generosity.
The cast includes
Cecil Parker as Seller's
Archdeacon,
William Hartnell as a town councillor,
Roy Kinnear,
Irene Handl,
Eric Sykes,
Joan Hickson and
Steve Marriott. Sellers' performance is generally held to be outstanding, in a meatier, more dramatic role than most he'd previously taken on, but many find the ending a little ill-fitting and silly.
The film is also notable for its use of
profanity, very daring for 1963; Sykes' character at one stage utters the line, "What if it pisses it with rain?".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Heavens Above'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://heavens_above.totallyexplained.com">Heavens Above! Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
