Peter Sellers, David Lodge, Bernard Cribbins, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Maurice Denham 

The Peter Sellers Collection 

A great British crime comedy always worth watching again, Two Way Stretch is about imprisoned crooks who hatch a scheme to pull off a heist with a perfect alibi by breaking out, doing the job, and then breaking back in to serve out their sentences. Peter Sellers, usually an eccentric support in these things, takes a rare lead as cocky mastermind Dodger Lane, confident enough to share the screen with performers who would be doing serious time if scene-stealing were an actual offense. The chief delight of the film is Lionel Jeffries's bristling, infuriated, hilariously humiliated warder Sidney Crout, forever fuming as Dodger gets away with some new scheme. Also in on the scam: Wilfrid Hyde-White as a bogus clergyman, David Lodge as the dimwitted muscleman, and Bernard Cribbins in the nice young man part. The British cinema has been turning out an unheralded series of wonderful caper comedies for decades, from The Lavender Hill Mob through A Fish Called Wanda to The Parole Officer; this effort--along with the follow-up, The Wrong Arm of the Law--ranks among the best. --Kim Newman