one reason i liked the smallest show on earth so much is that it is all of charlottesville's small movie theatres i've ever been to. but i should have liked it anyway even if i had never been in charlottesville: it is a charming film, shot in black-and-white, not quite 80 minutes long, a lighthearted comedy with peter sellers, virginia mckenna, leslie philips and bernard miles in, and with some very moving moments. a young couple who have inherited a movie theatre from a great-uncle travels to a small town to discover that instead of the grand multiplex they have envisioned, they have come into a one-hall dilapidated cinema that has long gone out of business. (there are some wonderful moments - the cinema is next to the railway and everytime a train passes the entire building rattles and the projectionist has to cling on to the projector to keep it steady. the revival of the cinema, the competition from the huge multiplex, (called the grand, and owned by a Very Evil businessman- you know the kind - cigar and big moustache - trying to force them out of business, buy them out at a low price, knock the building down to build a carpark. oh i forgot - the little cinema has a delightfully ludicrous name - the bijou!) the changing relationship between the young couple and the three elderly employees attached to the cinema- a dotty but devoted doorman (bernard miles!), a projectionist (sellers with his voice halfway between crun's and bloodnok's.) who is always on the bottle, and a formidable old crone (margaret rutherford! the very opposite of miss marple in this role!) who was formerly piano accompanist from the silent days and now sells tickets - these things make up the bulk of the story, with a surprise ending.

but the movie particularly it for personal reasons. here are two stories: one of the vinegar hill theatre, almost the life of the bijou exactly, and then of the jefferson theatre, the first movie theatre i had ever been to in charlottesville, where they're still showing $3 dollar movies (it was $2 when i started as a first year at uva) - no surround sound, and the upper level theatre, a balcony that had been split off to make a second theatre, had seating with far too gentle an incline that made me have to crane my head. when you put the two histories together you roughly get the history of the bijou.

and now i miss the old cathay picture house (where as an eleven year old i first saw old classics like doctor zhivago, gone with the wind and casablanca (although i fell asleep towards the middle of casablanca, i'm afraid. you couldn't imagine now - even sarah and ariel - who are 6 and 4, are allowed to watch cartoons until 9.30, but my bedtime back then was 8.30. i don't rememeber this, but my parents say that at 8.30 i would, without prompting, have washed up and got myself into pyjamas, and be wandering around with a pillow under my arm looking for someone to read me a bedtime book.)