Heavens Above!

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Heavens Above!
original film poster
Directed by	John Boulting Roy Boulting
Produced by	John Boulting Roy Boulting
Written by	Frank Harvey Jr.
Starring	Peter Sellers Bernard Miles Cecil Parker
Music by	Richard Rodney Bennett
Cinematography	Mutz Greenbaum
Distributed by	British Lion Films Romulus
Release date(s)	1963
Running time	113 min.
Country	UK
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

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 are 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 strong cast includes Cecil Parker as Seller's Archdeacon, William Hartnell as a town councillor, Roy Kinnear, Irene Handl, Eric Sykes and Joan Hickson. Sellers' performance is generally held to be outstanding, in a meatier, more dramatic role than most he had 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?".