Heavens Above!

A clerical mix-up sends John Smallwood, a prison chaplain, to the parish of a prosperous country town. Smallwood is a man who takes the Gospel exactly as it stands. He has barely started before he makes the dustman a churchwarden, opens the vicarage to a family thrown out of their home, and talks the wealthiest woman in the town into works of charity. The town rises up. John and Roy Boulting directed this English satire together, with Peter Sellers at its centre. The idea came from the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, who also takes a brief part in the film. The satire spares nobody: the church, business, the press and the state are mocked in equal measure. Brock Peters plays the dustman, with Cecil Parker and Ian Carmichael among the townspeople.