Director – Robert Day – 1960 – UK – Cert. U – 78m
****
Three prisoners plot a heist with the perfect alibi… that they are incarcerated in prison at the time – classic British prison comedy is out on UK Blu-ray on Monday, August 4th
Very much of its time, this British prison comedy concerns three convicts and an outside contact who sets them up with the perfect job. The top-billed performer is Peter Sellers, a British household name by this time thanks to radio’s long-running comedy series The Goon Show TIMES, but far from being a straightforward vehicle for Sellers’ indisputable comic talents, the film is very much an ensemble piece, with a main cast that reads like a who’s who of British comedy acting talent of the time.
Prisoner Dodger Lane (Peter Sellers) and his two cellmates Jelly Knight (David Lodge) and Lennie Price (Bernard Cribbins) have engineered themselves a cushy existence in one of H.M. Prisons where every morning at 7 a.m. sharp, groceries are delivered by van via a rope through their cell window and their beloved cat Strangeways is periodically taken out for a walk by friendly Chief Prison Officer Jenkins (George Woodbridge). The latter is due to retire shortly, and soon after that, the three men’s sentence (for the same crime) is due to end.
The well-meaning but easily duped prison governor (Maurice Denham) believes that his charges are on the road to reform, whereas they are, in fact, unrepentant, hardened criminals who can’t wait to get out of prison and return to a profitable life of crime. The unenthusiastic Dodger is being pressurised by girlfriend Ethel (Liz Fraser) to run the bans so that they can marry on his release, the younger Lennie is similarly being pressured – in his case, by his mum Mrs. Price (Irene Handl) who is embarrassed that he’s not followed the family tradition of multiple prison escape attempts, while Jelly gives safe-cracking classes under the guise of teaching honest cabinet-making skills to fellow inmates in the prison workshop.
The governor, meanwhile, spends his time escorting do-gooder ladies round the prison to show how his progressive regime is yielding results, and grows prize marrows in the prison garden. In his office, he entertains the three inmates’ vicar, unaware that the latter is their former associate and seasoned conman Soapy Stevens (Wilfred Hyde-White) who has a plan to involve the three of them in a heist with the perfect alibi: they need to break out of prison one night (the night before they are due to be released) and then break back in again.
Things change however when Chief P.O. Jenkins retires and is replaced by obsessive disciplinarian Chief P.O. Crout (Lionel Jeffries), widely known among the criminal community as Sour Kraut. Their easy-going existence is replaced by the reopening of the quarry, where inmates are put to work cracking rocks, while Crout is always on the lookout for suspicious or aberrant behaviour among his charges. The three must find new ways to make Soapy’s plan work with the new regime in place.
Two 15 minute films – one, an analysis of the film through interviews with Peter Lydon, director of BBC Arena’s The Peter Sellers Story and the BFI’s Vic Pratt, co-author of The Bodies Beneath: The Flipside of British Film and Television and two, Paul Joyce’s accompanying video piece features interviews with some of the period’s some surviving performers and behind the scenes collaborators (Roy Boulting, Beryl Reid, Bryan Forbes, Sidney Gilliat and Mai Zetterling) between them discuss among other things Sellers’ improvisational comic style, how it contrasted with Jeffries heavily rehearsal-based preparation, and the conflict and rivalry between the two on set. In the film, the tension between the two acting styles pays dividends, with Sellers’ freewheeling ad-libs coming up against Jeffries’ rigorous and heavily worked through study of an out-of-touch disciplinarian. Sellers was deeply insecure, and tended to give better performances when surrounded by actors who were already his personal friends, such as David Lodge.
Elsewhere in the film itself, Hyde-White is perfect as the conman masquerading as the inmates’ vicar, and there are bit parts from such then nascent talents as Thorley Walters (the Colonel in charge of the military escort for the jewels the gang plans to steal), Warren Mitchell (an inmate who is a professional tailor) and Arthur Mullard as a further inmate.
As with the Ealing Comedies of the 1950s, there’s a cosiness about the whole thing where criminals are really just decent people braking the rules a bit trying to get by and most representatives of the establishment (the prison governor, the army colonel, the do-gooder prison-visiting ladies) are fairly clueless. The one exception is Lionel Jeffries’ prison officer, a hardened type who sees right through the inmates / criminals and believes they are up to no good.
Viewed today, it mostly isn’t laugh aloud funny, yet possesses a certain quaint charm indicative of the way British society was represented on the screen at the time it was made. The script is economical and clever, however what really makes the piece work is the ensemble performances.
An audio commentary track by Authors and Comedy Historians Gemma Ross and Robert Ross, a brief but well-paced presentation of production stills and a trailer complete the package.
Two Way Stretch is out on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday, August 4th, as is another Peter Sellers vehicle, Heavens Above! (1963).
It would have been Sellers’ 100th Birthday on Monday, 8th September 2025.