Two-Way Stretch

Two-Way Stretch
1960 – 87 Min.
Kino Lorber – Blu ray
1:66 Widescreen
Starring Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins, Lionel Jeffries 
Written by John Warren
Directed by Robert Day

“Dodger” Lane, “Jelly” Knight and “Lennie the Dip” have been living large in Huntleigh Prison for several years; their Runyonesque nicknames all but guarantee they’re an amiable crew and while it’s not the Life of Riley, they have it better than most civilians on the other side of the wall: Chief Prison Officer Jenkins is a pliable sentry willing to look the other way when his palm is greased, and Horatio Bennett, the prison governor, pays more attention to his gardenias than the inmates.

But all good things must come to an end: Dodger and friends are preparing for their imminent release. To help them with the transition from prison cell to living room, they get a visit from the local vicar. But his turned around collar is just a disguise, the parson is a colleague, a sly old fox named “Soapy” Stevens, and he has a proposition for his mates; a king’s ransom in jewels is being transported across town and he’ll help them pull off a one of a kind robbery: escape the prison, grab the diamonds, and return that same night with no one—especially the lazy prison guards—the wiser. It would be, as they say, the perfect alibi.

So far, so good, but unbeknownst to these confidence men the pliable Officer Jenkins is retiring and being replaced with a nasty piece of work by the name of Chief Prison Officer “Sour” Crout, a prim martinet who watches his prisoners with a eagle eye. Under these circumstances this improbable heist would seem to be impossible…

Two-Way Stretch was director Robert Day’s second film after The Green Man, a wonderfully inventive black comedy starring Alistair Sim as a professional assassin. Written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and with a supporting cast including Terry Thomas, it is a perfectly balanced comedy of murder and mayhem and boasted one of Sim’s finest performances. Though Day would have an almost preposterously diverse career (The Haunted Strangler, Tarzan the Magnificent, Hammer’s version of She), The Green Man remains his best film. Written by a small army of screenwriters led by John Warren, Two-Way Stretch is a distinctly mild-mannered but consistently amusing crime caper; it’s no edgy black comedy but a cozy rainy day distraction, the cinematic equivalent of comfort food.

Bernard Cribbins and David Lodge are superbly cast as the hapless but sweet-souled Lennie and Jelly—they might as well be called Lenny and Squiggy. Lionel Jeffries as Crout and William Hyde White as Soapy are the opposite sides of the same coin, devious, arrogant and not nearly as smart as they think they are. Surprisingly the odd man out in this motley crew is an actor who is usually the odd man in: Peter Sellers.

Sellers plays Dodger, the brains behind the gang (perhaps the only brain). In scene after scene the actor is shockingly uninspired—his listless performance would cause most films to flounder but it’s the ingratiating supporting cast that keeps the film percolating. In 1960 the 35 year old Sellers was at the precipice of international fame, after years in supporting parts he finally found widespread acclaim in I’m Alright Jack and The Naked Truth, gained steady exposure on BBC’s The Goon Show, and gave American audiences a glimpse of what they were missing in George Pal’s Tom Thumb.

The shape-shifting actor made his name manufacturing one memorable persona after another, ofttimes in the same film. Seller’s creations, even in sketch comedy, were fully formed characters, from The Naked Truth’s two-faced game show host to I’m Alright Jack’s anarchistic shop steward. “Dodger Lane” is that rarity in Seller’s portfolio, a non-entity.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu ray release of Two-Way Stretch really sparkles, and the transfer of Geoffrey Faithfull’s (Village of the Damned) black and white cinematography is razor sharp. Extras include a new audio commentary by comedy historians Gemma Ross and Robert Ross, and a brace of theatrical trailers.