What a charming film this is, particularly for all us cinema fans. The story of a young couple who unexpectedly are left a cinema in one of their relatives wills and so travel to the small town where it is located and see a really great looking cinema called The Grand.

They are initially well pleased but soon find that it is not this particular cinema they have inherited but the smaller quite down at heel one called The Bijou which is right next to the railway bridge and line.

ABOVE – The Bijou Cinema

On top of this, they have also to take on the employees, Margaret Rutherford as the Manageress, Peter Sellers as the projectionist and Bernard Miles as the Commissionaire cum handy man who really wants his own uniform but has not got one.

All three of them love the cinema.

There is one really touching scene where the couple played by Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers come quietly into the cinema to find the three of them watching and old film together and Margaret Rutherford playing the piano along with the film. Peter Sellers is gazing at the film with tears in his eyes and Bernard Miles sits back, equally transfixed.

The two  realise just how much this cinema means to the three of them. Their intention had been to sell it but gradually they are seduced by the sheer magic of the place and it becomes a place they want to keep and they fall in love with it too.