Heavens Above! (1963)

Due to a clerical error, idealistic Reverend John Smallwood (Peter Sellers) is made the vicar of Orbiston Parva instead of the more conventional man that Archdeacon Aspinall (Cecil Parker) had intended. Smallwood immediately upsets the status quo by insulting the wealthy, making a black dustman (Brock Peters) his assistant, and taking in a vagrant family.

By 1960, the Post-War British Comedy movement was fading fast. There was little to connect films to WWII or to the harsh realities of English life in its wake.  However, many elements that defined the movement could be found in films for several more years. Heavens Above! still deals with class divisions, offers a mix of eccentric characters, and displays a few of the movements most familiar faces in Cecil Parker, Ian Carmichael, and Miles Malleson, as well as the man who arguably struck the final nail in the coffin, Peter Sellers. But it might better be referred to as a “regional comedy,” a phrase Sellers used with derision.

The writing and directing team of John and Roy Boulting were known for their satires, and Heavens Above! fits right in with Private’s Progress and I’m All Right Jack. Like the later, there is no hopeful message here. People are cruel, blind, traitorous, or greedy, and frequently a mixture of those. Government cares nothing for the people, business is happy to crush anyone to gain wealth, the poor are lazy and manipulative, and the good-natured only make things worse. For a comedy, it’s pretty dark.

But unlike I’m All Right Jack, it’s hard to sympathize with Reverend Smallwood as his single-minded pursuit of goodness destroys the town. He isn’t stupid, but unable to see what is going on around him.

Beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted, with many mildly humorous moments, Heavens Above! is unsatisfying. It isn’t a story, but a setting. Once I am shown the corruption and foolishness, I’d like to see something happen, but Smallwood just exists in it for a while, then goes on. No, that doesn’t mean I want a solution to civilization’s problems, but simply a plot. The Boultings are successful in painting a bleak world, but us cynics are hardly startled by the suggestion that people, and the society we’ve made, are fundamentally flawed. I’m left asking, “Yes, now what?” At just under two hours (it was cut down to 105 minutes for its original U.S. release), it is far too long for its message.

Since all things would point to a rather dreary ending, the Boultings tack on an improbable epilogue. It fails, replacing the dark, realistic satire with farce, but I can’t suggest anything better. With no one to care about and no story to follow, I’m as stuck as they must have been in searching for a comic finish.