Word: vicars
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Heavens Above! Peter Sellers again, this time as a vicar who becomes the first Bishop of Outer Space. Sellers seems to be still all right, but, Jack, something has gone wrong with his vehicles...
Heavens Above! dresses Peter Sellers -who at one time or another or simultaneously has been a truculent union leader, a dotty dowager duchess, an energetic young soldier, a slimy American playwright, and an earnest Hindu doctor-in round collar and benevolent simper, and makes him a vicar. Sellers gets better and better even if his movies do not. Cinema spoof British-style keeps searching farther and wider for ideas, and audiences have only to consult the credits for proof: this film was based on a conceit of that self-ordained iconoclast, Malcolm Muggeridge...
...terrible mistake, all right, sending a well-meaning ninny like Sellers to take over the parish of Orbiston Parva, home of the great three-in-one restorative, Tranquilax ("A sedative! A stimulant! A laxative!"). Everyone is outraged by the, new vicar's unfashionably golden-rule outlook except a profane and prolific family of Smiths. When the Tranquilax interests toss the Smiths out of the meadow where they have been squatting in grapes-of-wrath raunchiness. Sellers invites them to come live in the vicarage-goat and all. Soon he is up to his bicycle clips in holy hot water...
Heavens' vicar and Winter Light's parson are as different as England and Sweden: both have problems all right, but Sellers' troubles are worldly ones. Or are they? In the last scene Sellers is nowhere to be seen, but his quavering voice is heard singing a hymn as he orbits the earth, the first Bishop of Outer Space...
Chief to the love-loran, and a joy every minute she is on stage, is Constancy (Melanie Adams), who yearns unrequited for Dr. Daly (Joel Martin), Vicar of Ploverleigh. Constancy and Dr. Daly very nearly dominate the entire evening and to no ill effect. Miss Adams has plenty of ham and an admirable voice, she can leer lasciviously and make a mock-tragic aria sound like decent Mozart. Joel Martin sang more clearly and yet with more spirit than most people speak...