Two-Way Stretch ****½ (1960, Peter Sellers, David Lodge, Bernard Cribbins, Liz Fraser, Lionel Jeffries, Wilfrid Hyde White, Maurice Denham, Beryl Reid, Irene Handl) – Classic Movie Review 1,843

The 1960 perfect robbery comedy film Two-Way Stretch is a Peter Sellers classic packed full of quirky vintage fun, realised by a brilliant ensemble of lovable British comic actors.

Director Robert Day’s 1960 British perfect robbery comedy film Two-Way Stretch is a Peter Sellers classic from his happy heyday before he became an international star. It is packed full of quirky vintage fun, realised by a brilliant ensemble of lovable British comic actors of long ago.

The hilarious story centres on Sellers’s character Dodger Lane, the head of a bunch of prisoners (also including David Lodge as Jelly Knight and Bernard Cribbins as Lennie ‘The Dip’ Price), who hatches a plot for them to escape, steal a fortune’s worth of a visiting foreign ruler’s diamonds and then break back to their cells before anyone notices, giving them the perfect alibi.

Dodger has only a few days of his sentence left, so he plans to be out of jail for real to enjoy his new-found wealth anytime soon. However, their plans are disrupted by the arrival of the strict new Chief Prison Officer ‘Sour’ Crout (Lionel Jeffries).

It’s an old situation that goes back as far as the dawn of the talkies with Spencer Tracy’s movie Up the River (1930), but Vivian Cox, John Warren, Len Heath and Alan Hackney’s witty screenplay puts a new spin on it, with its funny dialogue and  eccentric English characters, brought to life in the perfectly judged performances.

Day directs smoothly and brightly, and moulds it into a Sixties British comedy gem. Alan Hackney is credited for additional dialogue, so he is likely responsible for the clever Cockney wit.

Lionel Jeffries is memorable as Chief Prison Officer Crout and so is Wilfrid Hyde White as Soapy Stevens. Maurice Denham (as the Prison Governor), Beryl Reid, Liz Fraser and Irene Handl also star.

Among the rest of the treasurable character actor cast are George Woodbridge, Cyril Chamberlain, Edwin Brown, John Glyn-Jones, Noel Hood, Thorley Walters, Walter Hudd, Olga Dickie, John Wood, Warren Mitchell, Ian Wilson, Arthur Mullard, Wallas Eaton and Mario Fabrizi.

Cribbins and Jeffries reunited with Sellers in The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963).

Jeffries went on to direct in The Railway Children (1970), with Cribbins appearing.

The prison scenes were filmed at the South Cavalry Barracks at Aldershot, and the security van robbery was shot at Pirbright Arch in Brookwood village, Surrey. The gates of the Aldershot Barracks stand in for the prison gates.

The film opened at the Warner Cinema in London’s West End on 11 February 1960 before going on general release on 14 February. Costing £118,677, it was a money maker for British Lion Films as the fourth most popular film at the British box office in 1960.

David Lodge as Jelly Knight, Peter Sellers as Dodger Lane, and Bernard Cribbins as Lennie (‘The Dip’) Price.

The cast are Peter Sellers as Dodger Lane, Lionel Jeffries as Chief Prison Officer Sour Crout, Wilfrid Hyde White as Soapy Stevens, Bernard Cribbins as Lennie (‘The Dip’) Price, David Lodge as Jelly Knight, Irene Handl as Mrs Price, Liz Fraser as Ethel, Maurice Denham as the Prison Governor Horatio Bennett,  Beryl Reid as Miss Pringle, George Woodbridge as Chief Prison Officer Jenkins, Edwin Brown as Warder Charlie, Cyril Chamberlain as Gate Warder – Day, Wallas Eaton as Gate Warder – Night, William Abney as Visiting Room Warder, Thorley Walters as Colonel Parkright, John Wood as Captain, Robert James as Police Superintendent, Walter Hudd as the Reverend Patterson, Mario Fabrizi as Jones, Warren Mitchell as Tailor, John Glyn-Jones as Lawyer, Arthur Mullard as Fred, Ian Wilson as Milkman, Edward Dentith as Detective, John Harvey as Governor Rockhampton Prison, Noel Hood, and Olga Dickie.

Bernard Cribbins OBE died at the age of 93 on 28 July 2022. He is fondly remembered for Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963), Crooks in Cloisters (1964), Carry On Jack (1963), Carry On Spying (1964), Carry On Columbus (1992), as Dr Who companion Tom Campbell in the 1966 film Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD, as Albert Perks in The Railway Children (1970), and as barman Felix Forsythe in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,843

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