Sadly Over-hyped

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

There was a time in the early 1960s when people took a new Peter Sellers comedy for granted. You could count on a clever if lightweight plot, an established cast of colorful supporting actors, and the man himself showing off a new comic accent. "Two-Way Stretch" falls right into place.This time Sellers is "Dodger" Lane, a robber doing time at the cushy H.M. Prison Huntleigh with pals Jelly Knight (David Lodge) and Lennie the Dip (Bernard Cribbins). Their imprisonment is the perfect alibi for a jewel heist planned by their shady partner Soapy Stevens (Wilfrid Hyde-White). Just as the boys are about to sneak out and steal the lolly, a nasty guard named "Sour" Crout (Lionel Jeffries) turns up on their cell block.Sellers sprinkles Lane with a touch of Cockney but doesn't push himself much. The opening scene, of him yawning in bed as his mates assemble a posh breakfast, sets us up on the right note. The friendly old warden (George Woodbridge) knocks on the cell door before entering. "Oh, come on in, Chief, it ain't locked!" Dodger calls out from his pillow.With Lodge, Woodbridge, Cribbins as well as Irene Handl, Liz Fraser, and Thorley Walters all on hand, it's like a convention of Sellers supporting players. Did Graham Stark and Kenneth Griffiths have doctor's notes that month? The film manages to be entertaining without being that sharp. The amiable nature of prison life pre-Crout is enjoyably established (complete with shop classes where Jelly instructs on safe-cracking techniques), and Crout's own arrival leads to some Wile E. Coyote hi-jinks. Crout even manages to get blown up without any damage except to his clothes (and pride).A long-running side joke about the prison governor showing off his prize squash becomes the subject of labored double-entendres ("I brought this off myself" he tells a trio of society ladies as the camera angle suggests they are staring not at his plant but his crotch.) Many other one-liners also fall flat, but the camaraderie of the three lead prisoners and the way the film plays out the big heist keeps you engaged and entertained, if never quite laughing out loud.Sellers plays Dodger as very much focused on the jewel caper, even to the point of ignoring Fraser's panting efforts to kindle some romance. It's as if he and director Robert Day didn't trust the thin storyline to handle any of Sellers' typically wilder and more solitary comedy stylings. Jeffries emerges as the principal butt of humor, while the other actors all get turns in the spotlight. Hyde-White is especially good as the film's most crooked character, smiling beatifically throughout, while Cribbins, Lodge, and Handl mesh together quite well.Like AdamFontaine noted in his review here, Sellers doesn't seem terribly necessary; any leading comic actor who could play a crook would have done just as well. Maybe Sellers really was as tired as he acts it here (he starred in seven films in just 1960 and 1961); maybe he was trying to be less selfish on camera. If the latter, he succeeds!"Two-Way Stretch" may have been a time-killer for its star, but at least it was a pleasant one. Like other commenters note, it comes from a time when comedies were supposed to make you laugh, not hit you over the head with attitude or social comment. "Two-Way Stretch" is not much of a stretch in any direction; just easy to enjoy.

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.He plays 'Dodger Lane', a Cockney crook imprisoned at H.M.P. Huntleigh, along with safe cracker 'Jelly' Knight ( David Lodge ) and pickpocket 'Lennie The Dip' Price ( Bernard Cribbins ). To say they are having a cushy time would be an understatement. A milkman delivers Gold Top each morning, along with food and newspapers, and their cell is, according to C.P.O. Jenkins ( George Woodbridge ) 'the best place in the nick to get a cup of tea'. They even have a cat, appropriately named 'Strangeways'. As the film opens, Dodger is recovering from a surfeit of sherry trifle. The lads are due for release in a few days' time. Then fellow crook Soapy Stevens ( Wilfrid Hyde-White ) turns up, posing as a vicar. He escaped imprisonment after their last job because he was the only one with a water-tight alibi. Stevens has learnt that a Sultan's diamonds to be conveyed through the area under army escort. Stevens wants Dodger and the lads to steal the consignment. Knowing that this time, they are the ones with the perfect alibi, they readily agree. There are just two minor problems - firstly, they need to break out of the nick, and secondly, Jenkins' replacement is none other than C.P.O. Sidney Crout ( Lionel Jeffries ), a hard-faced warder who regards all convicts as scum...John Warren ( who wrote a lot of Dick Emery's shows ) and Len Heath's script is full of wonderful comic ideas and lines, and directed with a sure touch by Robert Day. One has to wonder whether or not the B.B.C. sitcom 'Porridge' derived any inspiration from this, so closely does the latter resemble the former ( curiously, 1965's 'Rotten To The Core' starring Anton Rodgers also features crooks named 'Jelly' Knight and 'Lennie The Dip', though played by Kenneth Griffith and Dudley Sutton. Coincidence? Or was 'Core' originally planned as a sequel to 'Stretch?' ). Alongside the main cast are old favourites Liz Fraser, Irene Handl ( delightful as Lenny's toothless mum ), Warren Mitchell, Thorley Walters ( as a dimwitted army officer ), Mario Fabrizi, Maurice Denham, Beryl Reid, and Arthur Mullard. The latter gets one of the best lines. Visited by his wife and her baby, he asks how old it is. "Eight months!" comes the reply. Arthur looks chuffed at first, and then baffled: "But I've been inside for two years!".As was the case with most of the films he appeared in, Lionel Jeffries effortlessly steals the film. He is able to make you laugh by simply bellowing "On the double!" and that takes some doing.My only complaint is that the film does not really ( pardon the pun ) stretch Sellers as an actor. He is good as the lovable 'Dodger', but the role could have been played by anybody. One wonders whether Sid James could have done just as good a job.If 'Two Way Stretch' is not a part of your collection of classic British comedy films, you should put that right immediately.Funniest moment? Its got to be the scene in the yard where Crout is trying to exercise the convicts by making them jump up and down on the spot. He does not know that beneath him is part of a tunnel dug by Lennie and Jelly. He soon finds out - by falling into it!Happy New Year to you all, by the way.

Despite "Two way stretch" usually being described as a "Peter Sellers film" it is an ensemble piece featuring some of the best British character actors of the 1950s and 60s.Maurice Denham,George Woodbridge,Thorley Walters,Wilfred Hyde-White and the wonderful Lionel Jefferies decorate this movie.Mr Jefferies in particular was never better than as CPO Crout the slightly mad successor to the kind-hearted veteran George Woodbridge. "Basket weaving?.....I'll get you baskets weaving !" he rants on being told that the cons are being taught that country craft. The usual lovable Cockneys and middle-class dunderheads make up the rest of the cast. It is the sort of film knocked out in a few weeks for silly money that the British Film Industry once excelled at.It wasn't "Great Art" but it was great fun.Now you need millions from the Lottery to make something a first-year Film Studies person would leave on the cutting-room floor. "Two way stretch " had no sex,no violence and no bad language,three of the requisites for comedy writers these days.It still makes a lot of people laugh.Not many modern comedies do.Is this a "Duh" moment?

A trio of convicts, Dodger, Jelly and Lennie, get involved in a diamond heist with the ultimate alibi - they plan to break out of prison, nick the swag, and then break back in. However, their plans are given a serious setback when the kindly chief guard retires and is replaced by the pathologically meticulous Sidney "Sour" Crout ...This is a classic British comedy, with a fantastic script by John Warren and Len Heath. The central idea, the characters and the dialogue are all brilliant, as is the wonderful cast. Sellers is tremendous, at that perfect point in his career where he was totally focused but not yet overcome with international stardom, and Jeffries gives the quintessential ramrod-back, no-nonsense, bark-at-everything, British comedy authority figure ("Silence when you're talking to me !!" he screams at a prisoner). White, Cribbins and Handl are especially terrific - there's a lovely visiting-day scene where Handl is berating Cribbins for bringing the family name into disrepute by not attempting to escape more often. The movie is full of wonderful banter ("Close the window Lennie, there's a bit of a George Raft coming in."), and each sequence builds beautifully into a wonderful comedy heist picture. This film, which I always consider a companion piece to the equally brilliant The Wrong Arm Of The Law, represents the very best of British film comedy, nestling somewhere between Ealing and Monty Python. Magic.