THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH 72r Daybill Movie poster Virginia McKenna Bill Travers Margaret Rutherford

Big Time Operators (1957)

Directed by Basil Dearden.

With Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers, Margaret Rutherford, Peter Sellers

Jean and Bill are a struggling married couple with Bill trying to scrape a living as a writer. Out of the blue they receive a telegram informing them that Bill's long-lost uncle has died and left them his business - a cinema in the town of Sloughborough. They pack their bags and travel to Sloughborough expecting to sell the cinema to gain a huge inheritance, however, they discover the cinema is falling apart and is run by a comically incompetant staff who seem to have worked there forever. They set out with a plan to sell it but things don't quite go to plan.