jesterjukebox

What can I possibly add to previous comments? Margaret Rutherford is my all-time favourite British film actress. (Favourite American is Betty Grable - but that's another story!) To see Margaret teamed with Peter Sellers and Bernard Miles is an absolute joy. That cowboy scene, with Peter clutching the projector to stop the picture juddering, and the audience going wild in the aisles, is itself worthy of an Oscar.

In honour of this excellent film, I named my first 'home cinema' in 1965 the Bijou Kinema. (My local picture-house in Dundee was the only real one I knew to use this description - the Royalty Kinema. I now have the exterior stills board on display at home.) Actually, my 8-seater wasn't at home but in the basement of my business premises, housing 16mm and 35mm movie projectors. Bliss! Many a time has Margaret Rutherford appeared on that screen, in "Missing Believed Married" and "Castle in the Air".

Sorry, this is not exactly a comment on "The Smallest Show on Earth", but when I think of that film I come over all nostalgic!

I was told many years ago that this film did not do well at the box office. Perhaps it was too Scottish for non-Scottish audiences! "Laxdale Hall" has been a favourite of mine ever since I first saw it, probably when first released. The age-old theme of Locals-v-Government always goes down well, but it is the characters who really make this film - Kynaston Reeves as the thundering minister with a passion for Macbeth, Prunella Scales as the village schoolmistress (in her first film role, but later better known as Basil's 'nest of vipers' Sybil in 'Fawlty Towers'), and best of all Roddy Macmillan as Willie-John the permanently-pessimistic undertaker who keeps expecting his father's body to be brought from the mainland by ferry but receives something else instead.

The smoothie MP sent from London wants the residents of Laxdale to up sticks and move to a fine new town going by the name of Drumleydubs. The locals are for none of this, and... well, you'll chust have to see for yourself! My favourite quotation came from Meg Buchanan during a downpour. One of the London visitors commented on the foul weather, and she told him, "I wass in London once, and they said it wass raining, but, och, you would neffer have noticed." it was probably a downpour to the Sessenachs!

!!! - - - GOOD NEWS - - - !!! LAXDALE HALL NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD from Panamint Cinema, West Lothian, Scotland - panamint.co.uk