TWO-WAY STRETCH
Director: Robert Day
Screenplay: John Warren, Len Heath, Vivian Cox, Alan Hackney
Producers: E.M. Smedley-Aston
Starring: Peter Sellers, Lionel Jeffries, Wilfred Hyde-White, Bernard Cribbins, David Lodge
Year: 1960
Country: UK
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 83 mins
For British viewers, the first thing that will likely strike them about the delightful Prison Comedy Two-Way Stretch is how similar it is to the following decade’s classic sitcom Porridge. It’s probably fair to say that creators Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais saw Two-Way Stretch at least once before they created Norman Stanley Fletcher and his jailbird cohorts. It’s not just the prison setting that invites this comparison. Several characters feel like forerunners of Slade Prison’s finest, with Peter Sellers’ Dodger feeling like a slightly more aloof Fletch, Bernard Cribbins’ Lennie sharing a youthful naivety (and first name) with Godber, Liz Fraser’s earthily glamorous Ethel being reminiscent of Fletch’s daughter Ingrid, and Maurice Denham’s oblivious prison governor sharing many qualities with Slade’s equally ineffectual overseer. Denham himself turned up in Porridge as a former judge who had his watch stolen, a misfortune that also befalls his character in Two-Way Stretch. There are other events in Two-Way Stretch that have close equivalents in Porridge, including a character disappearing down a hole in the prison yard and prisoners and their visitors swapping copious amounts of contraband while a guard’s attention is distracted. The clearest comparison to be made, however, is between Lionel Jeffries’ performance as the sadistic, shrill prison guard Crout and Fulton Mackay’s hated screw Mr. Mackay. Both men are brilliant in their respective roles, stealing scenes from their co-stars with apparent ease, something that reportedly did not sit well with Sellers.
If my entire opening paragraph seemed to be condemning Porridge for pilfering, that was not my intention. I consider Porridge to be one of the best written and performed sitcoms ever made and if it did borrow from Two-Way Stretch then I can only applaud its creators’ excellent taste. Fans of Porridge who discover Two-Way Stretch later down the line, as I did myself, will likely be delighted by the similarities which make the viewer feel immediately at home. But, of course, Two-Way Stretch is very much its own beast as well. Its smart little plot involves a group of prisoners nearing the end of their sentences who receive an opportunity too good to miss out on. Tipped off by a former associate who masquerades as a vicar to gain entry to the prison, the cons must break out of prison, do the job and then break back in again without anyone noticing, thereby giving them a cast iron alibi. The job, which constitutes the majority of the third act, is enjoyably staged but Two-Way Stretch’s real strength is the world it creates behind bars. The opening scene, in which three cellmates enjoy a luxurious existence under the supervision of an easy-going guard, tells us so much about the characters and their existence in about five minutes and within the cramped confines of a single cell.
While it’s fair to say Lionel Jeffries’ hysterical performance as Crout is the comedy highlight, Sellers is memorable for the dignified comic restraint he shows in shaping his moody, opportunistic ringleader. If Sellers was indeed jealous of Jeffries’ more overtly funny turn, he was failing to notice how his own performance was the linchpin of the film. Although he would eventually become best known for his broader performances as the bungling Inspector Clouseau, Sellers’ wide-ranging work in British film incorporated many far more subtle characterisations that clearly betrayed the acting talents which his later critics overlooked when claiming that his real gift was for mere mimicry. Sellers often liked to work with friends and familiar faces and Two-Way Stretch is full of them, from Sellers’ good pal David Lodge to stalwarts of British cinema Wilfred Hyde-White, Irene Handl and Beryl Reid. The film is smoothly directed by Robert Day, whose other films include the Alastair Sim vehicle The Green Man and Tony Hancock’s first big screen outing The Rebel. Although it shows it’s age with occasional of-its-time language and some sub-Carry-On bawdiness involving a large marrow, overall Two-Way Stretch is a very fine example of a thoroughly enjoyable British Comedy of its era.
HEAVENS ABOVE!
Director: John Boulting, Roy Boulting
Screenplay: Frank Harvey
Producers: John Boulting, Roy Boulting
Starring: Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Isabel Jeans, Eric Sykes
Year: 1963
Country: UK
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 118 mins
Peter Sellers had worked with the Boulting brothers a couple of times before, most famously in I’m All Right Jack, but Heavens Above! was envisaged as the brothers’ magnum opus. A hefty tome of a screenplay which translated to a film that ran to almost two hours, Heavens Above! was penned by the Boulting’s regular writer Frank Harvey, who co-wrote such earlier Comedies as Private’s Progress, Brothers in Law and the aforementioned I’m All Right Jack. Though the Boulting brothers brand of comedy often tended towards a certain level of cynicism, the results were generally quite lighthearted and palatable. While it features plenty of humorous touches and farcical interludes, Heavens Above! is a fairly shocking film because it appears to be almost viciously cynical about almost everyone. The plot, about a gentle and decent but somewhat naïve prison chaplain named John Smallwood who is mistakenly appointed as vicar of the conservative English country town of Orbiston Parva, seems to be gearing up for a morality play in which the liberal Smallwood uses his new position to highlight the hypocrisies of his parishioners. I would have happily watched that film but I’m not sure it would have been as interesting as the strange and shockingly dark beast Heavens Above! actually became.
A major flaw that is often pointed out in Heavens Above! is that the film doesn’t seem quite sure what it is trying to say. As the viewers expectations are systematically dashed at every turn, the dwindling amount of sympathetic characters leaves those looking for a conventional moral utterly stumped. The completely left-field ending, which is either brilliant or ridiculous depending on your interpretation (and, to be honest, I’ve felt both ways about it, even across the course of writing this sentence), is almost inarguably pessimistic. Although it was a fairly popular hit on release, it’s hardly surprising that Heavens Above! has since slipped into comparative obscurity. I would highly recommend the film for those who like curios as it truly is like nothing you’ve ever seen before, but I think such a categorisation may be selling it short. The film’s dedication to presenting snobbery, classism, racism and corruption with a satirical sting but also refusing to dole out feelgood easy answers is both refreshing and depressing, as is its curiously unforgiving attitude towards its apparent hero, whose ultimate fate could equally be interpreted as a metaphor for suicide, insanity or ascension.
An easier metaphor to pin down is the fact that the parish of Orbiston Parva is ruled by the Despard family, whose empire is built upon the manufacturing of Tranquilax, an all-in-one sedative, stimulant and laxative. The implication is clear: the people of Orbiston Parva are uptight, apathetic and full of shit. Yet the film continues to display its somewhat unnerving sense of balance in a scene in which Smallwood’s successful sermonising with the influential Lady Despard is undermined by his accidental and oblivious consumption of a bowl of dog treats. Heavens Above!’s strangely contradictory nature goes right back to the genesis of its idea. The notion for the film came from Malcolm Muggeridge, a conservative satirist who just over a decade and a half later would become famous for being one of the most adamant denouncers of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. While it’s easy to assume Muggeridge was averse to satire when it happened to be directed at something in which he believed, Heavens Above! seems to suggest a more complex attitude towards religion. There are those who have found Heavens Above! preachy but even in its pointed distinction between Christianity and the church, it doesn’t seem to hold either in especially high regard when it comes to societal change. I’m not convinced the film even posits societal change as something remotely possible.
As a reformed cynic who now finds cynicism to be a dangerous and cowardly stance, I ought to hate Heavens Above! but I actually love it. It is such an anomalous, fiery ball of unchecked rage masquerading in the clothes of a quaint British Comedy that it can’t help but fascinate and invigorate. It is so wide open to interpretation that it is hard to imagine anyone making a credible case for persecution against any one group. The film certainly seems disgusted by many of the right subjects but it also seems to be saying that just because you give a marginalised group the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean they’re not on the fiddle like everyone else. Sellers is wonderful as the Brummie vicar, displaying virtues such as courage and progressiveness but ultimately lacking the ability to bring about the changes he tries to implement. Is the film saying that change is possible but that it must be brought in more gradually? The chaos of the climax seems to suggest so, although that’s a somewhat unfashionable attitude in an era that was quickly picking up a political head of steam where civil rights issues were concerned.
How and why Heavens Above! works at all I can’t tell you. The best analogy I can summon is that watching it is akin to that moment when you’re arguing with a bigot online and you just let go of any tact or diplomacy whatsoever and tell them to go fuck themselves. It’s entirely possible that this approach is exactly what the film is seeking to condemn, although the inherent satisfaction in such an outburst is also that which the viewing experience emulates, accidentally or otherwise. Whatever the case may be, I’ll continue to enjoy the bewildering and slightly queasy experience of watching this funny, savage little satire, even if I’m never sure what exactly it is satirising.
Two-Way Stretch and Heavens Above! are released on Blu-ray by Studiocanal Vintage Classics on 4 August 2025. Special features include a handful of short documentaries on Sellers and the films, which make for nice, if slightly underwhelming, additions. The Q&A from a recent screening of Heavens Above! is also a tad awkward, although it is interesting to watch the panel struggle as I did to accurately interpret the satirical intent. The full list of special features are as follows:
NEW Peter Sellers: Criminally Good
NEW Two Way Stretch: Sellers on the Inside
Audio Commentary by Authors and Comedy Historians Gemma Ross and Robert Ross
Behind the Scenes stills gallery
Trailer
NEW Sellers Takes Off in Heavens Above!
NEW Heavens Above! A Q&A with Daily Mash’s Tom Whitley, Eva Griffith and Benedict Morrison
NEW Heavens Above! The Mask Behind the Mask
Audio Commentary by Authors and Comedy Historians Gemma Ross and Robert Ross
Lobby Cards gallery