- PLOTThe prisoners are able to escape from their cell by removing the pins from the hinges.
For obvious reasons real cell doors do not have hinges on the inside.
Peter Sellers in the innocent days before Hollywood got hold of him. 'Two Way Stretch' is a bright and breezy British comedy typical of the period.
Sellers was a lot better before he made it big internationally - this is one reason why. I was rather hoping they'd get away with it - and, even if Jeffries did recognise Hyde White, surely he didn't have the power to arrest him and Hyde White could have conned his way out?
The story goes that at the end of his life the actor Edmund Gwenn was visited by Jack Lemmon. When asked by Lemmon how he was feeling Gwenn is alleged to have replied: "Dying is easy it's Comedy that's hard.
In 1973 the Allans opined of this little gem that "looking back, Sellers may feel was the peak of his career. After this, he became a major international star and the fun seemed to go out of his films.
I saw this when it was first shown in cinemas, although about the only thing that stuck in my memory was the hysterical performance by Lionel Jeffries as the tyrannical prison officer. Looking at it today, what stands out is that although Peter Sellers is the nominal star, it is really in the nature of an ensemble piece.
This delightful comedy starring a pre-Clouseau Peter Sellers is basically Porridge fifteen years earlier, with Peter Sellers as crafty, cockney career criminal (and guest of Her Majesty's) 'Dodger' Lane. He and his cell-mates 'Jelly' Knight (David Lodge) and Lenny (Bernard Cribbins) treat the prison like a hotel, with a newspaper and fry-up every morning.
I'm giving this ten out of ten, one, because it's so good, and two, because it doesn't get the appraisal it deserves! A bunch of crooks, already in the nick, plan the perfect alibi for a 'blag'.
Cracking comedy caper involving, 3 Old Lags on the last leg of their Stretch, A Dodgy Vicar. A Diamond Heist, with a Perfect Alibi, what can possibly go wrong?
Peter Sellers plays the most normal of the characters, even if he is a convicted felon, which is unusual for those of us familiar mostly with his later films. Sellers plays one of a group of guys behind bars who plan the perfect crime - they'll commit a jewel robbery and be back in prison before anybody notices.
