peter sellers: is he really so good?

Think, man, think! The reverence arises from the very simple fact that Mr. Sellers was a very good comic actor who made movies that made millions upon millions of dollars for their producers. The true source of the reverence is the money, not the talent -- although the talent was certainly there.

But yes, Lom's facial tics etc. = genius.

i hate dr strangelove obv

His performance in Lolita - yikes. So fucking brilliant. Subversive even. Maybe my favorite performance by ANYONE, EVER. Even Pauline Kael agrees with me (a rare event indeed). There's also a movie called Battle of the Sexes from a Thurber short story in which he's very good indeed.

Spike Milligan was probably funnier, but Sellers was the better actor. Most of his performances went downhill after the PP series took off, and he started to turn into a bit of a self-parody. Being There was the one shining moment in the Seventies.

B-but, whaddabout Catch 22?

I think the reason why PS is so good in Dr Strangelove and Lolita is that Kubrick was the only director who actually stood up to Sellers' hissy fits, answered him back and directed him. In his book Lewis speculates how good Sellers might have been as the Patrick Magee character in Clockwork Orange or even as Jack Torrance in The Shining.

The other running theme through the biog is that up until he became an International Star (and the heart trouble started - Lewis essentially argues that he was a walking ghost for the last 16 years of his life) he did good work but afterwards was, with a very few exceptions (I really want to see The Blockhouse), content to settle for caricatures rather than characters. Again and again he rejected offers to do Beckett, Pinter, King Lear, The Alien under Sayjavit Ray (ET 15 years ahead of its time), probably because he feared that if he tried Proper Acting he would be "found out." It's significant that he never even considered doing any dramatic work in the theatre; he probably felt a fake doing that sort of thing and in any case had enough of what he called "fuck you money" not to bother himself with it unduly. It was the same with Kenneth Williams; started out as a legit actor (Saint Joan, Welles' Moby Dick - Rehearsed) but afterwards (with the significant exception of Joe Orton) generally settled for what he termed "low farce." Maybe he just wasn't that good a straight actor - no footage survives of his Dauphin or his multiple appearances with Welles, so we can't really judge. I agree that The Goon Show is notably unfunny, and not just for age/time-related reasons either; after all, Hancock, Round the Horne etc. are still eminently funny and listenable.

Actually, in PP tradition, I remember back in the day, the time a pal of mine nicked one of the huge retort stands and made it onto the bus with it. He had the base under one foot and ran the pole all the way up his trouser leg, under his blazer and up the back of his neck. The teachers just figured he had a limp. What a legend he was, for a time.

Why it was called a retort pouch, I have absolutely no idea.

yeah, it's been my favorite biography ever since it came out, even though I think they cut out about 400 pages when it was published in America. I guess they figured Americans weren't that interested in Peter Sellers. (admittedly I doubt anyone is as interested in PS as RL is)

Really? FUCK. Now I've got to buy it again!

'I'm All Right Jack' definitely one of his greatest performances, and a real late-'50s time capsule to boot. Marvellous.

Hal Ashby!! Wow, mucho mucho drug intake in 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'.

And yes, PD, the Lewis biog of Burgess is equally great - it opens with this amazing setpiece of AB visiting Richard Ellman sometime in the mid-80s and carries on in a similar tone (eg loathing and contempt) for the next 400 odd pages - v. bracing stuff, and certainly not another shilling life that will give you all 'the facts'

"Lolita" is his finest performance; I always remember Lewis' description of Quilty's contemptuous air of aloofness - from a normal plane of life - on the dancefloor, when he first encounters Shelley Winters. "Dr Strangelove" and "Being There" are of course highly recommended. "The Naked Truth" is a very interesting early British one; giving PS a chance to show his range with an impressionist, sardonic character. "The Optimists" is quite a maudlin, but a very effective encapsulation of Old London-on-the-cusp-of-change. Sellers plays Dan Leno effectively - who he was obsessed by, for a time.

Also because no one has mentioned After The Fox, which more folks really need to see - if only for Sellers' hilarious riffs on Fellini.

As kids, a friend of mine and I tried to listen to the Goons--IIRC, they were either on late-night public radio or on tapes he rented from the library. In any event, our mid-American ears found them utterly incomprehensible. We couldn't understand most of what they were saying, let alone grasp any of the humor.

remember getting The Block House from netlix years ago out of morbid curiosity and yeah, it was freaking rough. no plot, looked & sounded like it was filmed at the bottom of a muddy pond, Sellers seemed to be barely awake... an incredibly bizarre misadventure of a movie

(xp) You have to expect a fair amount of incomprehensibility from Spike Milligan tbh.

I remember seeing him as the Gryphon in a film version of Alice in Wonderland when I was very young. I knew nothing about him, but I thought the name "Spike" was pretty cool.

And lo and behold, Peter Sellers was the Hare:

https://monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com/2019/03/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-made-in.html

Ooh, I just switched over to London Live and there's an interesting looking British crime film (from 1960) called "Never Let Go" on with a chubby Sellers as a vicious gangster ... and he's actually really good in it! I wish I'd seen the whole film.

Centennial festival on at the Film Forum right now.

Sellers wasn't a good enough actor to overcome weak material or roles that didn't fit his talent, but in order to make money, he accepted a lot of both. There just weren't enough surefire 'Peter Sellers' scripts out there to cast him in. He made a lot of mediocre (or worse) movies, but when he was at his best his work was good enough to be preserved and savored for many generations to come. So, a very mixed bag.

There was a BFI season, wanted to see Dr Strangelove and just didn't get round to it.

it's not the end of the world

Maybe you can jump on the Concorde and see it in NYC tomorrow

Also belated lolita xp

Feeling compelled to stream After the Fox now, which will not be shown on the big screen. Hope it gets a little better, as people have said in the archives.

So far it's mildly amusing at best.

Burt Bacharach soundtrack is good though, especially the title song with The Hollies singing!

All three episodes of the mid-90’s BBC documentary series about him are on the beeb iPlayer. Much of the home movie stuff is fantastic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002j13n

Caught The World of Henry Orient yesterday at the retro. Bibi Osterwald got the biggest laugh with her reaction to one of the teen girls not knowing who John Barrymore was. Sellers is a bit confounding in it since you don't know what accent he's gonna use from moment to moment.

(There is another ILE thread dedicated to this film)

Passed by the little cottage across from Highgate Woods where PS spent some years.

The documentary about how Sellers sabotaged Ghost in the Noonday Sun is fascinating any shows just what a troubled man he was, with no consideration for anyone else.

Yes, poor old Harry Secombe having to put up Milligan AND Sellers. No wonder he became a Christian!

Reading all about his antics now in Mr. Strangelove by Ed Sikov.

Seems like the protective jealous behavior towards Britt Ekland in After the Fox is pretty true to life.

Think I will pass on Strangelove this evening and possibly go during the week.

Enjoying seeing him in the earlier films before his thing had sort of hardened into shtick.

Yes, he got worse as the 60s rolled on.

"I want more sand in the desert!"

They keep playing "Waterloo Sunset" before the screenings

Along with some of Sellers's Beatles interpretations.

Can't remember if I've heard "Goodness Gracious Me" yet though

The blu ray of Gurney Slade has an Anthony Newley variety special, Peter Sellers shows up for a sketch and is just blatantly corpsing throughout it. A very rare glimpse for me of seeing this guy actually get joy from comedy.

It's fascinating to watch him in earlier British films where he is still part of an ensemble, at least nominally but usually more so.

And he was still appearing in some of these films while he was already working with Kubrick.

Wondering if Goon Show is a play on Gang Show.

"You're not crying? My music does not make you cry?"

"Good morning!"

Wondering if Goon Show is a play on Gang Show.

― Seductive Barrytown (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, September 30, 2025 6:19 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Apparently the name was inspired by the Goons (as in Alice the Goon) from 30s popeye strips. However all of them performed at one time or another in military entertainment troupes, (gang shows) and it was that generation so …

Weren't the Nazis nicknamed goons by British troops during WWII?

Don't recall

Wondering whether I should try to see things like I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and Heavens Above!.

The latter is early 60s UK and harder to see, so maybe that.

Definitely not harder to see in the UK, it's on TV regularly, as are lots of his British films from the late 50s/early 60s, Hollywood ones not so much (I've never seen I Love You, Alice B. Toklas for instance).

I liked him in "Heavens Above", where he played an idealistic Brummie vicar and was the straight man while everyone else hammed it up for a change.

― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Sunday, 20 June 2021 22:10 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Please probably better and more enjoyable

xp

Alice B. Toklas was on TCM late last night and might show up later today on the TCM app.

He is really good in Heavens Above but the film itself isn't.

That's reason enough to see it.

Also some other actors who I don't mind seeing: Kenneth Griffith, Miles Malleson, Bernard Miles, Ian. Carmichael, Irene Handl.

But maybe you see them all the time on the telly.

Roy Kinnear.

Steve Marriot is apparently in it too somehow.