Product Details

• Actors: Peter Sellers
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: February 3, 2009
• Run Time: 480 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001LXIDUY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,915 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Peter Sellers Collection includes six British comedies in which Sellers plays leading or supporting roles. The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) is among the run of gentle British comedies in the 1950s in which outmoded and broken-down local institutions were saved by collections of committed eccentrics. Aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his wife Virginia McKenna inherit a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discover that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, but the decrepit Bijou, with a drunken projectionist played by Sellers.

In 1959's I'm All Right Jack, Sellers plays both Sir John Kennaway and, unforgettably, the trade union leader Fred Kite. The result is laugh-out-loud comedy with a satiric edge, lampooning the then-burning issue of industrial relations. The brothers John and Roy Boulting also directed and produced such British classics as Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), in which Seller's unscrupulous prime minister is upstaged by Terry-Thomas as the idiot son of a great ambassador, and Heavens Above (1963), in which Sellers gives an unusually low-key performance as a young vicar whose tendencies to interpret Christian doctrines in his own individualistic way, rather than conform to church traditions, leads to all kinds of chaos.

The great crime comedy Two Way Stretch (1960) is about imprisoned crooks who hatch a scheme to pull off a heist with a perfect alibi by breaking out, doing the job, and then breaking back in to serve out their sentences. Sellers, usually an eccentric support in these things, takes a rare lead as cocky mastermind Dodger Lane.

Hoffman (1970) gives Sellers a lot of funny business, acid lines, and whimsical turns. Secretary Miss Smith (Sinéad Cusack) is blackmailed by meek, middle-aged Mr. Hoffman (Sellers) into spending a week of domesticity with him in his flat. At first, the tone is creepy, but it becomes more poignant as both characters learn to see each other as people.

Product Description

I'M ALL RIGHT JACK: When naive Oxford graduate Stanley (Ian Carmichael) is hired as a lowly employee in his uncle's missile factory, the factory's socialist shop steward Fred (Sellers) sees a great political opportunity. Soon, Stanley finds himself stuck between Fred's union and the family business, leading to an epic comedic tug-of-war! THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH: When their great-uncle dies, newlyweds Matt and Jean Spencer (Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna) inherit a dilapidated small-town cinema that comes with an eccentric staff including a drunken projectionist (Sellers), a dotty cashier (Margaret Rutherford) and an ancient usher/janitor (Bernard Miles). CARLTON-BROWN OF THE F.O.: When valuable mineral deposits are discovered on the forgotten British colony of Gaillardia, the Foreign Office sends bumbling envoy Cadogen de Vere Carlton-Browne (Terry-Thomas) to investigate. But while negotiating with the corrupt Prime Minister Amphibulos (Sellers), Carlton-Browne is convinced to split the tiny island in half, sparking a revolution that builds to an international nuclear showdown. TWO-WAY STRETCH: Criminal mastermind Dodger Lane (Sellers) is a model inmate at Huntleigh Prison until he and his cellmates hatch a plan to break out of jail, steal a sultan's diamonds from a military convoy and then break back into jail before morning. HEAVENS ABOVE! Sellers stars as Reverend John Smallwood, an idealistic prison chaplain who is accidentally assigned to a wealthy parish known for its popular sedative/laxative. When Smallwood insists on ministering to both rich and poor, he manages to somehow infuriate both groups - along with the entire town government!

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars list of the films in this collection, February 3, 2009

By 

K - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peter Sellers Collection (DVD)

Here's what's in the collection. It's sad that a customer has to put this up instead of the publisher or Amazon. From Lionsgate...

I'M ALL RIGHT JACK: When naive Oxford graduate Stanley (Ian Carmichael) is hired as a lowly employee in his uncle's missile factory, the factory's socialist shop steward Fred (Sellers) sees a great political opportunity. Soon, Stanley finds himself stuck between Fred's union and the family business, leading to an epic comedic tug-of-war! THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH: When their great-uncle dies, newlyweds Matt and Jean Spencer (Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna) inherit a dilapidated small-town cinema that comes with an eccentric staff including a drunken projectionist (Sellers), a dotty cashier (Margaret Rutherford) and an ancient usher/janitor (Bernard Miles). CARLTON-BROWN OF THE F.O.: When valuable mineral deposits are discovered on the forgotten British colony of Gaillardia, the Foreign Office sends bumbling envoy Cadogen de Vere Carlton-Browne (Terry-Thomas) to investigate. But while negotiating with the corrupt Prime Minister Amphibulos (Sellers), Carlton-Browne is convinced to split the tiny island in half, sparking a revolution that builds to an international nuclear showdown. TWO-WAY STRETCH: Criminal mastermind Dodger Lane (Sellers) is a model inmate at Huntleigh Prison until he and his cellmates hatch a plan to break out of jail, steal a sultan's diamonds from a military convoy and then break back into jail before morning. HEAVENS ABOVE! Sellers stars as Reverend John Smallwood, an idealistic prison chaplain who is accidentally assigned to a wealthy parish known for its popular sedative/laxative. When Smallwood insists on ministering to both rich and poor, he manages to somehow infuriate both groups - along with the entire town government!

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Caveats, November 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Peter Sellers Collection (I'm All Right Jack/Heavens Above!/Hoffman/Two-Way Stretch/The Smallest Show on Earth/Carlton-Browne of the F.O.) (DVD)

Peter Sellers, often written off as a talented mimic, was actually a superb actor, if he found his character's "voice". He's been unfortunately typecast (I have a friend who thought he was French!) as Clouseau, and he may actually be the finest slapstick comedian after the end of the silent era. This collection is a treasure trove for anyone who wants to see him in early or obscure work, but the movies are ineven in quality and tone. Also of interest in that all these movies he plays a single character (even in the early, unincluded, "Only Two Can Play" he lapsed into multiple accents. CARLTON-BROWNE OF THE F.O. is really a Terry-Thomas vehicle with Sellers in support. Like all Cold War comedies its plot (such as it is, about the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. all trying to discover the secrets of a small island under British protection) is quaint and hardly funny, but there are enough bright spots to recommend the movie as a whole (the scenes between Terry-Thomas and Thorley Walters are invariably delightful). THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH has a young Sellers, again in a supporting role, playing the aged projectionist in a run-down theatre; again, the bright spots are scattered but for anyone who likes old movies and quiet humor will find enough not to have wasted his time with it. HEAVENS ABOVE, a satire on Communism, using the Church as a vehicle for its representation, has Sellers in the lead as a mis-appointed Anglican clergyman who turns his parish on its head; but the movie eventually plays against itself with its serious undertones. TWO-WAY STRETCH is an out-and-out farce with Peter Sellers as a prisoner who plots a crime that will give him a perfect alibi -- he's in jail; but a martinet new guard (Lionel Jeffries, the grandfather "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang") may ruin his plans. "I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK" has Sellers in support again, in a star-studded farce about labor vs management, with Selelrs as Hitleresque shop steward and labor leader Fred Kite (a breakthrough role for Sellers). HOFFMAN is the odd man out in this box, as it comes later in Sellers' career, and the character he plays isn't comic, just unpleasant. Why "Hoffman" was included -- why it's even on DVD -- I can't even pretend to speculate. A more fitting addition to the collection would have been "The Wrong Arm of the Law", another crime caper. The poignant comedy-drama "The Dock Brief", with Richard Attenborough as the confessed wife murderer and Sellers as the barrister determined to get him off despite his own protests, would have rounded the box off nicely. The perfect addition would have been the hilarious "The Naked Truth", where Sellers and Terry-Thomas (again) plot to do away with a scandal-sheet publisher (Dennis Price) who threatens to expose their secrets (Sellers' jolly television host character is actually a slumlord). Even the much less funny "Only Two Can Play" would've been an improvement. Why they stuck on "Hoffman" -- unless it was simply dirt cheap to add -- boggles the mind. If you don't mind paying the freight for five comedies that range from middling to pretty-good-for-its-time, just to see early Sellers in some forgotten roles, this is the set for you. Just bring along a shovel to bury "Hoffman" and you'll be fine.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The comic chameleon, January 23, 2011

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Peter Sellers Collection (I'm All Right Jack/Heavens Above!/Hoffman/Two-Way Stretch/The Smallest Show on Earth/Carlton-Browne of the F.O.) (DVD)

The half-dozen British-made films featured in THE PETER SELLERS COLLECTION are nicely dubbed. There's no "extras" with this set.


Best IMO is HOFFMAN. In what is essentially a two-character psychological study, Sellers portrays a lonely middle-aged businessman who blackmails a young girl from the office pool into spending a week with him. At first she's totally creeped out, but in time gets to better understand the importunate Mr. H.

I'M ALL RIGHT JACK! has some great sight gags and adult humor. It's the story of a young man at loose ends after returning from WWII who's trying to decide on a career path.

HEAVENS ABOVE is a good satire on both religion and commercialism, but it's spoiled by a silly "minister in space" finale.

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH is an early success for Sellers, who plays an elderly projectionist in a rundown movie theater.

CARLETON-BROWNE is a mediocre Terry-Thomas political farce where Sellers is wasted as the corrupt prime minister of an island nation long affiliated wth Britain. Not very funny or entertaining.

TWO WAY STRETCH is a neatly done prison comedy that has Sellers pulling a heist with an ironclad alibi for protection: supposedly he's incarcerated when this crime occurs.


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll ratings.

(6.9) The Smallest Show On Earth (Big Time Operators) (UK-1957) - Virginia McKenna/Bill Travers/Margaret Rutherford/Peter Sellers/Bernard Miles

(6.1) Carleton-Browne of the F.O. (Man in a Cócked Hat) (UK-1959) - Terry-Thomas/Peter Sellers/Luciana Paluzzi/Ian Bannen

(7.0) Two Way Stretch (UK-1960) - Peter Sellers/David Lodge/Bernard Cribbins/Wilfrid Hyde-White/Lionel Jeffries

(7.3) I'm All Right, Jack! (UK-1960) - Ian Carmichael/Terry-Thomas/Peter Sellers/Richard Attenborough/Margaret Rutherford

(6.8) Heavens Above! (UK-1963) - Peter Sellers/Cecil Parker/Isabel Jeans/Ian Carmichael/Bernard Miles/Brock Peters/Eric Sykes

(6.9) Hoffman (UK-1970) - Peter Sellers/Sinéad Cusack/Ruth Dunning/Jeremy Bulloch