The Smallest Show on Earth

The Whitsell Auditorium and the Northwest Film Center Equipment Room are closed to the public in an effort to further stem the spread of COVID-19. All classes canceled until further notice. Stay connected to art, film, and more by signing up for our newsletter.

Directed by Basil Dearden

United Kingdom • 1957 • 80 mins. • In English

Showtimes & Past Screenings

Matt (Bill Travers) and Jean (Virginia McKenna) are a young, newly married couple with their whole lives ahead of them. But when Matt’s uncle dies and leaves a decrepit cinema to him, the newlyweds are forced to postpone their dreams of world travel for a career in film exhibition. Along with the cinema come three employees: a doting bookkeeper (Margaret Rutherford), an alcoholic projectionist (Peter Sellers), and an elderly usher (Bernard Miles). All is going well-ish until a pushy competitor offers to buy the cinema, intent on leveling the building to create parking—but Matt, Jean, and their ragtag band of workers have other ideas. “A delightfully eccentric comedy . . . An Ealing-style allegory of English resolve.”—Time Out. Imported 35mm print.

Genres: Comedy

Appears in: 2018 on Celluloid

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.