I found it very difficult indeed, I must say.
I found it almost impossible to cut myself off from directing
and go in front of the camera to start acting.
I found that in scenes, I think it can be done after a while.
But in scenes I'd be watching actors not as another actor, but
as a director and forgetting what I was going to do myself as
an actor. Yes, well, it is terribly
difficult. It's not been done very often, I
suppose. Wells, Alton Wells, I think was
a very successful attic with magnificent Amazon's and Citizen
Kane. Larry Olivia has done it very
successfully and chaplain, but I don't know many other people
actually. It's giving yourself rather a
burden, isn't it? It's, it's a twofold job and
should be divided, I guess. I think so.
Really, as far as I'm concerned, I'm I'm going to direct again,
but just urely direction. If I make an appearance, it'll
be a Hitchcock appearance. Hello and welcome to Goon Pod.
My name is Tyler Adams and this is the show described by the
Daily Crucible as a right load of old trouser artfully
positioned as podcast entertainment, which is fair.
Joining me this week to talk about a Sellers film, one of his
seldom talked about films, the one in which he both starred and
directed is joining me. Joining me is Victoria Pratt.
And Victoria is a film historian, curator and writer
best known for his work with the BFI.
And he was very instrumental in the restoration and the
commercial release of this particular film a few years
back. As we discussed during our chat.
Victoria, thank you for joining me today.
And I first became aware of you one of the best DVD or Blu-ray
commentaries I've ever heard was yours.
And it was for the the film the wrong box.
That's. Very kind of you to say, Tyler.
Thank you. And and I've seen you most
recently I so I bought the I bought them all there.
There was what, 4? I think it was 4.
Blu rays put out Sellers films in recent months and you're
certainly on the two way stretch.
Yeah, I'm on all of them, actually.
Yeah, one way or another, they filmed me talking about all of
those, and I think they sort of chopped it up into bits across
the different films. Yeah.
So what? How would you describe yourself
in terms of what you do? Well, professionally, I've
worked at the British Film Institute since 1998 in a number
of different jobs there. I was a curator there for about
10 years or so. I've worked in acquisitions, in
access, in footage sales, in servicing prints.
So I've done a bit of everything.
So I guess I described myself in terms of the BFI stuff as a film
archivist, film historian. My current job is a video
producer. I work for BFI, DVD and Blu-ray
and increasingly UHD as well. And that is my current role
there has been for a number of years now, and it really is
great, especially when you get to do stuff like obscure Peter
Sellers films on Blu-ray. I mean, it's a horrible treat to
be able to bring this stuff and get it out there, you know?
Absolutely. But so do you.
Do you have influence on what gets put out?
Yeah, yeah. I started up a particular strand
of the label called BFI Flip Side with my friend and
colleague William Fowler some years ago.
And it started off as sort of screenings we used to do at the
South Bank, BFI South Bank, and then it became a sort of an
offshoot imprint of the BFI video brand.
So we've done more than fifty of those now.
And yeah, pretty much most of those are based on stuff that I
have. Well, a lot of them have been
championed by me. Of course, there are many other
talented people who champion stuff as well.
BFI. But, yeah, that is my particular
brain child, I suppose, in many respects.
Set that up with Jane Charles, Sam Dunn and William Fowler.
Yeah. Back, I don't know about 2016, I
think we started doing these releases.
So yeah, we've done more than fifty of them now.
And it's all about sort of celebrating the unsung stuff in
British film and television history.
Stuff that maybe is slipped off the critical radar, stuff that
maybe is a bit of a curate's egg.
Stuff that perhaps just hasn't had enough love, perhaps is not
perfect, but is very interesting.
The things that are entertaining, but not
necessarily stuff that has been deemed worthy of critical
examination in the past. I've I've got a few of them was
one of the earliest ones the bed sitting room?
Yeah, that was right at the beginning.
That was one of the first three we did the the bed, sitting room
and primitive London and London in the Roar.
OK, yeah, actually, funny enough, we we talked about
primitive London and London in the Roar a couple of shows ago.
Because we were talking. Yeah, well, we were talking
about one of Michael Wynner's early films from 1960, much of
which was filmed around Soho. Which one?
Climb up the wall. Oh, OK, OK.
Yeah, with. With Jack Jackson, the radio DJ.
Right, right. Winner is a much overlooked
figure in many respects, I think.
Quite maligned. Did a lot of, you know, did
himself no favours in the latter years, but certainly some of his
early works in the 60s. A well worth look.
Yeah, well, the cool I've seen the cool Mikado not not many
others. You should check out the system
and I'll never forget what's his name and the games.
They're all terrific. OK, OK, so OK, so this is a
podcast where it's built up a head of steam, it's got a big
following and it's evolved because originally it was well,
it's called Goon Pod. So it's ostensibly the Goon
show, but also what I call the Gooner verse, which is anything,
anything that has a goon connection and that has spread
to to mean, you know, Milligan on TV or books or records and
obviously Sellers films. Before we get on to Sellers
himself, though, did I mean, I know you won't have been around
for the goons when they first were broadcast, but were you
ever, you know, did you hear them or listen to them when you
were a kid or. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely.
I grew up in the 70s, and in the 70s they used to broadcast the
Goon Show on the radio every Sunday afternoon.
And I used to sit in the back garden with my dad listening to
the Goon Show. And I thought it was the most
hilarious thing ever because it seemed to sort of take no
prisoners. You know, there was that kind of
freedom about the style of comedy and a freedom even to
sort of go outside of coherence. You know, it's like a kind of
comedy where I didn't understand half the things they were going
on about. A lot of it was kind of old
references back to the war and stuff like this, but I didn't.
But at the same time, it was so ludicrous and free form and they
were having such a great time doing it.
I thought it was really, really funny.
I used to love the Goons. It was, it was very much a
formative thing as a kid. I loved the goons.
And and had you or were you already aware of sellers before
you heard the gun show or? Well, I was aware of him.
I was made aware of him mainly when my dad took me to the
pictures. I think it might have where was
it? That might have been a cinema in
Hounslow or Northfields where they were doing a double bill of
Pink Panther films and I remember thinking that that was
the greatest thing ever. I thought there was something
really sort of aversive about Peter Sellers, you know, because
he would sort of do things on screen that I that there's, you
know, shamelessly silly things that you weren't supposed to be
allowed to do on screen. And I I love that there was real
madcap to the talent he had. Some of the things that really
fascinate me about his earlier performances is how much he
almost seems the smallest character on the screen.
He lets everyone else act around him and he sort of just peers
are in the middle, but he's the one you're watching, you know,
he's the one you focus on. And I sort of, I guess as I grew
older, I sort of became more fascinated with this particular
talent. He had to be not even doing very
much, but he was the one you were looking at, you know?
Oh, especially in two way stretch where he's not.
Yeah, he's not stretching him, no pun intended, stretching
himself too much. But he's the one that's the
focus of of our attention, isn't he?
Yeah, that's a, that's a very good example.
I I think around that time, particularly some of those ones
he did with the ball things, you know, that that sort of little
era there just before he became big in the States, they really
reflect this peculiar talent. It's like by doing less than the
rest, he seems to say more. You know, you must get into
Battle of the Sexes where he's sort of so small, let everyone
else do the big acting around him.
But he is so fascinating in that film.
I've tried to describe this when I've talked about Sellers films
in the past, and I've never really managed to sum it up to
my, to my own satisfaction. But he's got this the way that
he holds himself in his earlier work.
He's he, he, he's got this sort of he's like a what haven't you
put a coiled spring? But he, he, he, he, he doesn't
give much away. It's all in the the eyes are
darting left and right and and there's this.
This is barely contained panic under the surface, isn't there?
But. Yeah, but very still, it's like
still Hurricane is, you know, happening around him.
But yeah, as you say, it's just a little a glimpse or a twitch
of the eye. It's really important in those
early performances, I think. I know the film that we're going
to talk about today will come to it properly in a second, but it
opens with an aerial shop of and we can see from quite high up we
see this what's clearly a schoolmaster conducting a
crocodile of children through a through a little town.
But even at that distance, by the man's his gait, his straight
back, his his stiff arms and his legs sort of marching, you can
tell straight away that seller's just the way he's walking.
He keeps his arms close to his side.
Yeah, there's just something about him which is hypnotic
about his performance in that. And yeah, everything is thought
out, but gives the impression that he, you know, he he was a
master inhabiting a character in a way other people couldn't do.
Yes. He just acts with his back then,
isn't he? Absolutely, yeah.
Greg, Ranks gather out. Now, then what did we see today?
The cathedral. The cathedral?
Yes. And when was it built?
The 14th century. The 14th century.
Now, then, how many fish were there in the pond?
There were 4 fish in the pond. Four.
Hands up, all those who said 4. Oh, I thought there were some of
you who said three. In fact, I'm sure there were
some of you who said three. All right.
Do you enjoy your walk? Yes, Sir.
Good. See you in the morning.
So we're talking about a film today, which is, or was for the
longest time, I don't want to say lost, but it, it wasn't in
circulation, really. It was pretty lost.
Pretty lost. There were 235 mil prints in the
BFI National Archive which I was aware of and back in my earliest
days at the BFI I remember bringing into the collection a
little 16 millimetre negative of the title sequence.
That very bit you were just talking about came in useful
later on because we could sort of attempt to match the colour
from that original Meg because the prints we have were very
faded. And of course there's the 16 mil
print that was in Peter Sellers own collection which is also the
National Film Archive. Yes.
And I, I read something that you wrote about this.
So by the way, sorry. Listen, there's the film we're
talking about is Mr. Topaz Topaz from 1961.
But I read something you wrote when the Blu-ray was released
where you said yes, So Sellers had his own private copy of the
film and you said it. It was clear that he had it had
it had been, it had been projected a few times.
He's obviously watched it over the years.
Yeah, more than once, because it had a fair number of splices in
it, so he'd run it a few times. Right.
It's interesting, isn't it? Because it's not.
It's not one that's ever talked about, really.
No, no, no. I mean it was very much
overlooked in his obituaries. It's it's quite peculiar.
He he very much belittled it himself, but I think it's really
quite over. Was overly maligned at the time
and certainly was by no means the the failure that a lot of
critics said it was. No, so I bought the Blu-ray and
it the the it's great value by the way, you get Blu-ray and
DVD. It's.
Got loads of good extras on there as well.
Loads of great extras. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And including a really interesting talk that sellers
gave to the NFT. Was it in 16?
Yeah, that, that's fascinating, wasn't it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Just around this time, yeah. So he was just becoming aware
that he could maybe cut it as a sort of romantic lead as well as
a comedy style. That's that's right.
And he was also talking about a film that he never made, that he
was intending to make at that time, which was Memoirs of
Across Eyed Men. Yes, yes.
But so I bought the, I bought the Blu-ray in probably 2019, I
think when it around the time it came out and I watched it for
the first time and I was a bit underwhelmed.
OK, with you. Then I left.
So I left it for about 6 years. And then at the last year I
thought I'll give it another go and I watched it again and I
really enjoyed it the second time round.
And likewise, obviously I've watched it again this week and
and and and enjoyed it equally. Yeah, I watched it again this
week, and I liked it more than last time.
Yeah. You know, I mean, I like you,
Tyler. I think the first time I saw I
was like, you know, I think, you know, part of the problem is,
you know, there is definitely a structural problem in the film.
And there's also a problem that Sellers couldn't do anything
about. You know, the sort of central
character becomes less likeable as the film goes on, which is
always a bit of a problem in drama.
Yeah, yes, there's, there's a, there's a an ending that you
don't really expect to see in a. But I, I think, I don't know, I
think this is by no means a failure in terms of any of the
performances or the script or the direction.
Well, it's another. Really, really good.
It's a great example of what you said before about he he, he's
kind of like, he keeps his performance quite minimal,
whereas everyone around him is, is over the top and particularly
in the case of Leo Mckern and Michael Goff.
But aren't they, aren't they wonderful?
That was sketches though, right? Yeah, wonderful.
I love the scene. There's a scene with Leticia
Hunt as well. She's sort of coming in
complaining because Mr. Tobaz has given her son a good grade
in the report and Leo Mckern is trying to butter her up because
he wants her money. And Sellers and his Tobaz is
this sort of trying to maintain this dignity.
He can't possibly change the the poor marks because it was
correct. And Mccurn's trying to persuade
him that he ought to change just to get the money into the
school. And it's a masterly little
scene, I think. And as you say, Sellers, he's
very small in the middle and the others are hamming it up like
crazy. But it's beautifully done.
And I think it's a very all the, all those things in that person
of 45 minutes, I think work really well.
Absolutely. And, and yeah, Topaz in that
scene, Topaz is, is really sort of affronted that that this
Baroness should should doubt his integrity that and, and expect
that he expect that he would change the marks just to please
her. And and Leo Mckern's face as
Topaz is is is. Listing off the child's failings
is priceless. It's brilliant.
Mckern is such a great, great actor.
You know, I always loved him in rum.
Paul of the Bailey, you ever watched that?
Yes. Oh, years ago, yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Good. Mckern is so good.
He's brilliant and Maticia Hunt's really good in that scene
too, and I think it shows. If nothing else, Sellers chose
brilliantly in his his sort of cast for that film.
Oh yeah? Well, he was a friend of Liam
Mckern. They'd worked together.
I'm sure you probably know this most recently in the Running,
Jumping and Standing Still film. Yeah.
And the mouse that roared as well, which was 59 and also
Mckern had had acted alongside Sellers on stage in.
Brouhaha, right? Right.
Because brouhaha was sort of famously a bit of a sort of
scattershot affair, wasn't it? A bit.
Yes, a bit. Sellers was sort of not entirely
behaving himself at that time. No.
And he was because he didn't like the repetitive nature of
the stage and. And he was drunk on one occasion
because. Yeah.
That's that's the story of him being drunk on the stage.
It's quite would have been fascinating to see though,
wouldn't it? Well, he'd been to Alec
Guinness's knighthood party. So the elegance.
Had received his knighthood, whatever 58 it would have been,
wouldn't it? And, and during the day, Sellers
had been at this party and having having a snootful and
then turned up in the evening for the performance and said to
the audience, he's basically walked to the edge of the stage
and said to the audience, something like I'm drunk or I'm
sloshed, do you want me to carry on?
And the audience shouted. Somewhere, yeah, the audience
shouted. Yes, and then at some point
during the proceedings, he fell into the orchestra pit or he
fell, fell off the stage anyway. Wow, how could?
You follow that, Blimey. But Mr. Mr. Topaz So in the US
it was known as I Like Money, yes, Which is an awful title.
Obviously it's a song in, it's a song in the film, but it's an
awful title, yeah. Yeah, peculiar title.
It does sort of make me sort of highlight some sort of thematic
link to magic Christian, you know, in terms of this sort of
what will you do for money, how far will you go for money, Which
I guess it also looks quite closely back to, only to comply
as well. Where sellers is librarian, it's
supposed to be the party. Of my.
Zestling's sort of woman who runs the council like proxy and
he has to sort of at the end of it he suddenly says no, no, I'm
not taking the money. I'm not going to be your lap
dog. I'm going to maintain my
integrity. I guess in Mr. Topaz.
It's sort of the other side of the coin.
He does take the money and then you see what happens, right?
Yeah. Yeah, we'll come to that.
It was also forgot to mention very important film in in terms
of Sellers because it was his directorial debut in.
Theory. Yeah, I guess people say that,
he directed. Running, jumping, standing
still. Well, well, Richard Lester
insists that he he largely directed that.
Milligan insists he directed it, and Sellers Sellers insists he
directed it. So they all but yeah, if if we
take it that this is his, his first directorial, yeah.
Yeah, well, it certainly is officially, isn't it?
Yeah, and. Also, it's his directorial swan
song because he if you don't include his unofficial work on
his last film, The Fiendish Plot of Three Manchu.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, he, he sort of jumped in
a bit on other films, didn't he? When he sort of got crossed with
the people and sacked him or something.
Yeah. But how much of that stayed in
those films? I'm not sure He he, he would do
bits and pieces, wouldn't he? He would, yeah.
But. Yeah, but he in interviews after
this, he said, oh, I don't want to direct.
I don't want to direct. He sort of really got his
fingers burned on this one. Yeah, he'd said either during
the filming or leading up to the filming of this, though maybe it
was in that NFT talk that I mentioned before.
He said something on the lines of.
I haven't written it down, but he said something along the
lines of if, if, if it's a success, I might end up
concentrating on directing and stop acting.
Yeah, well. Yeah.
I, I, I always wonder if he sort of envisaged himself taking a
sort of more of a Jacques Tati turn or Charles, Charles Chaplin
rather than Charlie Chaplin, you know, the the clown who suddenly
becomes more serious and makes more respected works, you know?
Yeah. And this film is based on I hope
I get this pronounced this correctly.
Marcel Pagnol Pagnol Pagnol I. Think is probably near to the
pronunciation. Not that I know anything about,
yeah. Correct pronunciation.
It's based on his play called Topaz, which is a tale of It's a
tale of an unassuming provincial schoolmaster who becomes
corrupted by business and ends up being the very antithesis of
everything he used to stand for. Excellent business while it
lasted. What a lovely view.
But now it's all over. From now on, the company will
belong to me. All the profits will go to me.
It's as simple as that. Very funny.
You imagine that you own this company.
I don't imagine I do. The lease is in my name.
The company is in my name. Everything is legally mine.
Everything is legally his. What?
But that's theft. You take it to court.
Say something for goodness sake, I will.
Oh my God. As we mentioned, it was out of
distribution for many years, so watched it again the other night
and I was struck. I mean, it's lovely restoration,
but at the end of the day, it's still very washed out, the very,
very lots of brown and red. Yeah, yeah.
It is really, really faded. It's really hard to protect the
colour in Eastman colour prints unless the outset you get them
properly stored. Yeah.
They they just go. They go.
They fight. Yeah.
Yeah, and the. Negatives were nowhere to be
found when we did this still. It's got a.
It adds a charm to it. There's a, There's a.
Degree of colour correction. But by the same token, when you
try and get a film back to how it used to look, you don't want
to make make it so it's too zingy.
You don't want to make it so you can be sure it didn't look like
that. I there's that fine line you
have to trade with these remasterings, you know.
Oh absolutely. You wouldn't want to be
artificially colouring it, no. Stuff now avoid all that sort of
thing, yeah. The The screenplay for this was
written by Pierre Roof. Roof, who'd been on the producer
on the Millionaire S, which I think was Seller's previous
film. Yeah, that was just.
Around this time, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.
He was supposed to be working with Wolf Mank events but he
sort of threw that out so he could do this instead.
Yes. Because I've reread the Roger
Lewis Sellers book. I love that.
It's great, isn't it? It's great.
I interviewed Roger last year. He's a great guy.
And I mean, it's a controversial book in many ways.
Yeah, but how? Great to have such opinions, you
know, such a oh, it's. Writing it's, it's the it's
exhilarating. Yeah, you don't.
Have to agree with it to, to enjoy it.
Sort of the sort of attack of it's writing style.
It's brilliant, yeah. Yeah.
And he, yes, I reread so I interviewed him, but obviously I
reread the book when it was when it was republished last year.
And there's a there's quite a bit, there's an extended bit in
there about his sellers fallout with Wolf Mankiewicz and the the
production company that they were going to set up.
Yes. So that that was around this
time. Now the other thing, but it's.
So instead it was written by Pierre Roof.
Now I looked on and I looked at the Mr. Topaz's Wikipedia page
as a starting point. You know, I don't rely on
Wikipedia, but that's the, that's where I start.
And then I add stuff right in terms of my research, lots of
people said. For lots of people, that's the
only place they go. Oh, I know.
I salute you. I cannot stand that just.
Read. No contract, just reading.
Out a Wikipedia article on no no no, but one thing I did pick up
on there I've not been able to see find anything else about
this. It's said such it's it's said
it's written by Pierre Roof, but also said Johnny Spate was
script associate. Oh really?
Yeah, it's interesting, I don't think.
That's he's not credited, is he? No, no.
I. Didn't see him so I don't know
what where that's from. He's not credited on the film.
And I've never. Heard Oh, hang on a minute, hang
on a minute script associate. Yes, John spite, but I've spelt
it differently with a line. So maybe it's maybe.
It's a different man. It's a different John Spite.
Yeah, but on Wikipedia it's definitely Johnny Spade spell.
This is the problem. With Wikipedia, isn't it, You
know you've been properly cross checked.
You know we really all go and double and triple check this.
Now the paper Wikipedia, they just whack in the first name
that comes up right? Absolutely, Yeah.
So we we mentioned that Sellers plays this this character, Mr.
Topaz or Albert Topaz. And he's he's a very earnest,
very honourable school teacher in this little French provincial
town. Is it on the outskirts of Paris
or it would seem to be. Yeah, they certainly say it is.
Yeah, and you see the Eiffel Tower in some shots.
Yeah, that's right. And he's he's honest to a fault.
And he lives and digs with his his colleague and friend Tamiz,
who's Michael Gough. Yeah, he's great.
In this isn't he, he's he's. Amazing.
I've only ever seen him playing Grumpy Men and he's far from
grumpy in this. He's very much hat on the side
of the head, isn't he? She is.
A woman, you must appeal to her as a man.
That's what they want. Women.
They want men. Yes, Yes, yes, yes.
I I quite agree with you, Tammy. I I agree about that.
But I mean, do you think she'd see me in that light?
I mean, do you think I, I'd have any appeal to her as a man?
Stand up as a stand up. Yes.
You, you, you, you. You present quite a manly
appearance. Your your own teeth.
Yes. And healthy hair.
Hair. A good beard.
The beard. Your beard is really like
masculine, you know, from certain angles your face is
positively leonine. Do you think so?
Yes. Yes.
I see what you mean, Tam.
I am not of unprepossessing features.
You've got a very distinguished nose.
Do you think so? Yes.
I never, never used to like my nose.
Oh, it's a very good nose. A commanding nose.
I think it is commanding. It's just that one never thinks
of 1's nose as being commanding. The guess is gone.
Let me do it. Let me do it.
There's some matches and coins
on the meter, if you can find them.
Yeah, they're they're. Very much best friends, aren't
they? Yeah, very poorly paid, but they
enjoy their work. And as I said, with the film
opens we see we see Topaz with the children and the headmaster
is the aforementioned Leo Mckern who plays Moosh, Monsieur Moosh.
He puts social status and financial betterment before the
well-being of his pupils. And he has a coquettish
daughter, Ernestine, who was Billy Whitelaw.
Yeah, and. She's great too.
She is. I've not seen enough of Billy.
Billy Whitelaw. Very, very.
Fine actress. Very, very fine, I always think.
Of her from the craze film. I particularly like a one of her
very early films. It's a little film she did
called Small Hotel with Gordon Harker, where they're playing
the staff at this little hotel. It's it's not a film that anyone
ever talks about, but I really like it.
So I recommend that. OK.
And. She's got this weird
relationship. She's she's kind of leading
Topaz on, isn't she? I don't, I don't, I don't get
the feeling that she's got any real interest in him.
No, she just. Wants him to mark her books
right? Yeah, she wants to borrow his
red ink and then she that she gives it back to him because
he's going to do all the marking for her.
But she's. Obsessed with money, right?
Like everyone is in this film, you know, money is the in wire
or not that everyone is is defined by money, whether
they've got it or haven't got it or whether they want it or don't
want it. So it's that's true.
That's. True.
Very much. A film about about money.
Yeah. And you see Topaz and his, his
charm walking along at the start there.
You both got no overcoats. And they, he says he'd rather
buy a book of poetry than have an overcoat.
And that gives you a sort of idea of how he is when it
begins. Yeah, well, everyone in this
film is working at Angle apart from to me by the end, I mean,
everyone's working, working at Angle and yes.
So. So Topaz is living in these
digs. He's he doesn't make much money
as a as a teacher. So he gives private lessons,
including to a small boy called Gaston, which is which was
played by his own son, Michael Salas.
Yeah. Interesting.
We only get a glimpse of the young man now.
Michael Sellers turns up in another Sellers film, at least
one that I can think of, anyway. He turns up in The Magic
Christian at the end of the decade.
Yeah. You know the bit I mean.
I love the Magic Christian. Me too.
The bit where it goes all chaotic at the end where you've
got Christopher Lee as Dracula and everyone sort of thinks that
the ship's sinking or whatever, and there's there's a there's a
mass panic. Oh yeah, yeah.
There's sort of the big scramble that you get in a lot of those
films around that time when they.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
And then you've got you've got a scene with a bunch of passengers
stalking along this corridor. And one of them is about 7 foot
tall with this, like, ginger Afro sort of thing.
And it was it was teenage Michael Sellers.
Well, so yeah, but get books on me.
He wrote a. Book, didn't he?
I've got it. Line around it did.
PSI Love. You, yeah.
Yeah, which was quite revelatory at the time, wasn't it?
Yeah, it's in. My stack here somewhere, I
think. Yeah, it's in piles of books all
around me. He had.
A tragic life in this, in many ways.
And he died. He only died.
I think he's sort of in his mid 50s when he died.
It's another heart attack. Like, well, it's a heart attack
like his dad, I think you say. He plays young Gaston.
And Gaston is the nephew of Susie Courtois, who is played by
Nadia Gray. Yeah, who I wasn't aware of, but
she's AI think she's from Romania originally.
Yeah. Yeah, I had.
AI had a fairly prolific career all sort of around Europe in
loads of different she's French stuff and German stuff and
Italian stuff. She was all over the place.
And she is AI don't know if she's a successful or she or up
and coming musical actress. And she lives in this Chateau
with he's not her husband, is he her but Lum he's her.
What is he? She wants him to put the money
up for for sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But we'll come back to to her. But Lum in a bit.
So Michael Gough, I love that scene where right at the
beginning of the film where where Topaz is in his little
Garrett room at night. Or is it early in the morning?
Still marking? Yeah, Yeah.
First. Thing in the morning, isn't it?
Yeah, that's right. Still marking Ernestine's
people's books. And Michael Gough comes in and
he's just a childlike character, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, really. And he, he.
It's almost like he's got this platonic love for Topaz.
Absolutely. Yeah, I think.
And he describes Topaz as having this leonine appearance with a
fine commanding nose. Yeah, that's.
Interesting, isn't it? And by.
The way Salaz has got a full beard in this, which you don't
see very often, no. I, I he sort of trims it off
later, sort of narrows his face down later in the film, doesn't
he? When he becomes the sort of
bloodthirsty businessman instead.
Yeah, he gets a kind of a almost like a Van Dyke sort of thing,
like he had as the Prime Minister in the Mouse that
roared. Of course he's got a full beard
in the Block house. Have you ever seen the Block
house? Love the block?
House. I wrote about it in my book The
Bodies Beneath. OK, one of my very favorite
seller's performances. Oh, really?
Yeah. OK.
Yeah, we've covered that and it's a very dark in many ways,
in both senses of the word, very dark film.
Super film. Lovely.
What's his name as well? Peter Vaughan is marvellous.
Yeah, Charles. Ezner was great in it.
Oh, God, I forgot he was in it. Yes, yeah.
So anyways, we get this scene at the school where Topaz confesses
his love to Ernestine and he he kisses her, she allows him to
kiss her and then she slaps him, I think.
And and he recognises that as as as sort of tacit agreement that
they are kind of an item. Yeah, Yeah, it's a bit.
You know, the the gender politics are perhaps a little
peculiar, perhaps. Yes, yeah.
Did you pick up on Because obviously Sellers is is
directing it. Did you pick up or did you
suspect much ad libbing on his part in this film?
I. Think.
He pretty much stayed on the script.
I mean, I, I, what I think he might have added is, I mean, I
one of the things that there's not quite enough of in this film
are sort of laugh out loud moments and there are a couple
of little bits of physical business which I think he's
added in. There's a lovely bit where he
slides off her but long sofa. Do you remember this bit?
Yes, I do. It's.
Just. Suddenly slips and it's
brilliant and it's sort of you're suddenly thinking, Oh
yeah, this is what he would come to do.
So well in those Pink Panther films, you know, this sort of
just sudden trip and then he trips up the step on the way
out. So I think there's a few
physical adletes certainly I'm not sure about script wise.
What do you think? Well, so there's the bit where
So he, Topaz is delighted that it all seems to be going well
with Ernestine, and he goes to tell Tamiz and Tamiz is doing
this scientific experiment thing.
Oh yeah, I know the bit. You.
Mean and. And as Topaz is about is talking
to him and then as Topaz is about to depart, he's he sniffs
what that like the chemical experiment and he says, oh,
smells lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe. That is, that could well be,
couldn't it? Yeah, it.
Just seemed the sort of thing sellers would do.
Leave this room. Immediately.
Yes, thank you. That means it's happened.
What's happened? She just slapped my face.
Congratulations. Yes.
I. Forgot about the headmaster.
What do you think someone might find out how the land lies?
Me, Would you? All right, not only it's a good
moment because I'm just about to to introduce a new boy to the
school. Where did you find him?
Oh, well, it said boy guest on Courtois.
I give him lessons, you know. And what is it?
A poor child who I was to help this morning.
Must been waiting for hours. I must rush.
Yes.
Timmy's discreet. Yes.
Yes, yes. What must I do?
Rush. Yes.
Smells lovely. Thank you.
Your best ever. He doesn't.
Overindulge himself, does he? You think as the director he
could, but he doesn't he. Doesn't I want the voice because
obviously he's known for his voices.
It's a very, it's a very bland, colourless voices.
It's Seller's own voice slightly.
Is he his? Own voice.
I never quite know what his own voice is, you know, he's such a
slipper chap. I'm I'm never quite sure, you
know. And he does 2 voices in this
film, doesn't he? Does he?
Yeah, he does the. The changed Topaz voice in the
latter film, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But at this. Point, he has that colourless
voice. I mean, he this is around that
time where he's starting to tell the interview interviewers that
he had no personality of his own, right, which was nonsense,
but he was telling them that, yeah, I can't.
Believe why he thought that was a that was a good thing to say.
I think he was just sort of wiping.
The slight, you know, he thought it.
This sort of enigmatic quality, you know?
Yeah, and also I suppose that it kind of it gives him permission
to to to misbehave. So you said there's not that
many laugh out loud moments that there isn't.
But certainly the funniest performance in in this film is
Leo Mckern. He's great.
And it's all these little ticks
and twitches and and he's picking lint off his tie and
he's his eyebrows, his bushy eyebrows are are going up and
down at at a lick. And when we first see him, he
comes into Topaz's classroom and there's a poster that's a bit
ripped and he says that's torn. And then, and then the, the
scene continues. And then he, as he's about to
leave the, the, the classroom, he says that's torn again, which
again, all that seemed to me, I, I that felt improvised, right,
right. Could.
Well, have been, you know. Although you know how sellers
hated being upstaged? Yeah, it's.
Interesting how he allows others to.
I mean, I, I would say, you know, Mccurran probably upstages
him a couple of times in this. Yeah, well, we know about
obviously Lionel Jeffries in two way stretch and then wrong with
the law as well. It's.
Kind of quite remarkable. He seems to be very generous
with these actors in this film. Herbert Lum years later said
that Sellers directorial touch was so light it was practically
non existent in this film and and he said he was a direct.
He was kind of like a director in name only, not, not really
pushing the actors in any particular direction.
And I don't know, I don't think that's a good thing.
Is it? If if you're making a film.
I wouldn't say this looks like a shoddily directed film either.
No were. There were there any particular
interesting shot choices that caught your eye or yeah, I.
I like like you say that first sequence I think is very
impressive. I think his sense of design
around the the Garrett and the school is is very good that sets
of neatly photographed. I think it's a sort of
functional direction rather than a flashy direction, but I think
it does the job. You know there's.
This bitch as well. The bit of strange subplot minus
subplot with this mysterious music box that keeps playing.
Oh yeah, and it's one of the people's trying to wind up Topos
and I I don't get the feeling that Topaz has got a lot of
control over the pupils generally.
Does he have their respect, do you think?
No, I don't. Know it's hard to say isn't it I
do know that when he finds the music box he suddenly goes into
this sort of shrill register that almost reminds me of some
of his gun show voices. You know who not to buy, you
know, all this sort of thing. And yes, it's quite an
escalation. It's it's odd.
And you you then sense maybe, you know, is this a man just on
the verge of snapping? You know, it sort of almost has
that air about it. He wants to become engaged to
Ernestine, doesn't he? But he.
But he needs to broach the subject with her father, and
he's nervous about that. So I think he's going to get
Timmy's to do it on his behalf. Yeah, that's right.
Oh, but we've got the scene, as you mentioned before, with the
Baroness. Now I want to.
Talk to you about a small matter which is worrying me
electrically. A mere bag of tale which will
soon be settled. I have just received my
grandson's monthly report and I haven't dared to show it to
anyone. I explained to the baronet that
there must have been a slight mistake on the part of the
secretary who copied your notes. Well, I I don't imagine so,
Headmaster, since I have no secretary and I wrote the report
by hand. Madam, would you excuse us?
Yes, of course, just for a moment.
The Baroness who has just asked you to give her grandson private
lessons, already has three boys in the school and I myself have
certain obligations. It is For these reasons that I
put it to you that I will not be surprised if there has been a
slight mistake The. Actress who played the Baroness?
Is it Martita or Marsha? Martita, who's best known, I
suppose, as Miss Havisham in David Lean's Great Expectations.
Roger Lewis says in in his book on Sellers that she was she she
liked to tipple, apparently the actress, and she was given to
unexpected farting during filming, right?
Which left Sellers paralysed with laughter a lot of the time.
So I suppose it would do. Leo Mckern as the headmaster is
fretting because he thinks that the Baroness is going to remove
her grandchildren, I think, from the school because she's so
outraged at Topaz. And that's when Michael Goff, as
to me, comes in and is talking to the headmaster about his his
friend. He's your friend, a perfectly
honest man. He couldn't be more honest.
And is the general a kind, generous minded man?
Oh, yes, he has a general's heart.
And let your friend make his request.
I'm certain he will be received with open arms.
Well, you are the general. Hi, General.
The Lieutenant is Topaz. And the young woman is the kind
and beautiful Miss Mulch. What?
Tovaz wants to marry my daughter?
Yes. Have you all got mad?
But great love is akin to madness.
Think of Romeo and Juliet. Paula and Francesca.
I listen Dante and. Beatrice This performance
reminded me quite a bit of his. Have you seen him in The
Prisoner? I love him in the.
Prisoner. He's great in that, isn't he?
Yeah. And then we we get to the sort
of beat of the film where we have Monsieur Benak, who is a
wealthy but bent Paris city councillor and it's Herbert Lum.
So this would be what the second time he's worked with sellers
because he was in the lady killers as well.
And he's he's annoyed because he had like as a as a front man for
some of his shady financial dealings.
He had Roger Deberville played by John Neville, and John
Neville's decided to stop working with him or stop lending
his his aristocratic name to to to Ben X shady dealings.
It's it's a bit. I found that this bit a bit
complicated or a bit. Yeah, it's.
Much more complicated than it needs to be.
I I think that's one of the problems with this film, that
that stuff in the school at the start is so beautifully done and
just right. And then you get the sense that
there's this dense knot of plot that you don't really need in
the middle. Maybe a more assured director
would have would have had a scene better establishing
everything. Maybe so.
Maybe, maybe that is one of the the problems with settlers doing
a first time director's job. But it's, you know, the script
has to take some blame too. Oh yeah.
Absolutely. And Susie, who is the
forementioned Susie, she's hooked up with Benac and she
needs her show financing. So she's desperate.
So she hits on the idea of using Topaz as the the front man for
Benac. Maybe that's how they did things
back in Paris back then, I don't know.
But Topaz is wined and dined and he's made managing director of
Topaz Limited and installed in these magnificent officers in
Paris and and given, Is this something like 2 1/2 thousand
francs a month or something like that?
Yeah, he. Thinks this is a fortune and
fortune. It's not.
Yeah, he's crooks though, and and I really appreciated Sellers
playing Topaz drunk but still proud because at one point he
thinks that they're trying to give him money as charity
because he's lost his job. Yeah.
Gradually. He becomes this city gent,
really, with his, with his office and his secretary in the
shape of Joan Sims, who we barely see.
Yeah, she's. Yeah.
She's clearly hopelessly devoted to Topaz, I think when he first
meets Herbert Lum's character. Herbert Lum offers him a cigar
and he says, Oh no, I don't smoke because he's got no vices,
Topaz. But he says he'll he'll take one
for his friend Timmy's, I think. But then we see Topaz more or
less in the next scene with a cigar on the go.
Now, is that the first indication of his slide into
into moral laxity? Yeah, I think.
It is. I mean, that's the other problem
with the film that's sort of very much too compressed, that
sort of change. We, we had such a lovely long
drawn out first bit. This suddenly happens all very
fast, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah.
We mentioned John Neville. Now I really only know John John
Neville from Baron Munchausen. Oh yeah.
Do you know him from much? No, not really.
No. They could have swapped him out
with Jeremy Lloyd. They have the same sort of
physique, the same sort of look. Yeah, I guess it's a fairly.
Thankless part, isn't it? Yeah.
His character calls on Topaz and more or less gives the game
away. Tells Topaz that he's being used
and that, you know, Topaz is is a front basically for Benak.
And and Topaz is outraged, threatens to go to the police.
And then Susie manages to convince him that Benak is the
executive of her father's will. And if if Topaz blows the gaffe,
then she'll lose everything as well.
So he agrees to carry on sort of playing along.
He's not not doing it willingly, but he agrees to continue.
Yeah, it all sort of moves at a on at a pace it.
Does that, isn't it? And I guess we're seeing a very
gullible Topaz, which doesn't really align with the kind of
slick criminal Topaz that we see just a few minutes later.
Well, that, that bit, right? We'll come to that shortly.
I just wanted to because that that bothers me.
Even when he Topaz soon after overhears Susie on the phone
describing him as an idiot and he confronts her and she again,
she has to kind of, I don't know whether she's lying, but she,
she has nothing to lose. So she confesses to her lowly
beginnings to try and win him around.
I don't really know where their relationship, if there is a
relationship, goes from this point because she's clearly a
liar. She thinks he's an idiot idiot.
Oh, and of course Topaz's success has been front page news
and the headmaster, Liam Mckern is He's quick to react and he
wants to marry off Ernestine to him as soon as he can because
they can smell. That money there, yeah.
And he and Topaz rejects her, of course, as you would do.
But the most confusing bit of the film for me is John Lamez.
John Lamez ref turning up in one of the 11 films he made that
Sellers was in. I counted them.
Yeah. He was doing like a different
film every week, I think around this point.
Wasn't he? John de Miserer?
He's pretty. Prolific, and he would take
everything right. Yeah, I mean, he turns up.
In sort of sex comedies in the early 70s.
Well, he generally would play authority figures or judges or
police chief constables or whatever it may be.
Here he's playing a slimy journalist, basically.
Yeah, the editor has. Made a very serious inquiry into
this unsavoury affair and next week half a million readers will
learn the truth about Topaz. This is my photograph.
The first duty of the press is to keep an eye on morals and to
denounce any abuses. Have you nothing to say?
No. What can I say?
No, Sir. You're not just going to wait
for the scandal to burst about your ears.
Think, Sir, honour is our most precious attribute and worth
every sacrifice. Come now, can't you guess what
you must do, Sir? I hardly dare put a meaning to
your words. Then dare, Sir.
Dare. And you honestly mean that if I
did that? This edition.
Would not appear. I'll give you my word.
It'll be a first class burial. Come, Sir, make an effort.
Kill yourself now. Certainly.
The sooner the better. What is in front of you?
Yes, of course. In front of me.
Yeah, that. Suicide thing was a bizarre
inclusion, wasn't it? Yeah, I was hoping you could
explain it to me. I can't this.
I believe it's referring what the source play, which is much
older, is referring to. Some tradition of you'd sort of
rather kill yourself than be dishonoured.
Some sort of Parisian French? Tradition, but we're.
Going back a long way for that, I think we're going back to the
sort of the days the play was written, rather than days in
which this film was made. Yeah, yeah, Although this, this
feels to me that I remember thinking, oh wow, there's
there's cars in this because remember thinking, this feels to
me like a period piece. Yeah, it's a weird.
One, isn't it? Yeah.
But then, yeah, when you see the Paris scenes, it's clearly set
in the in the present day. But yeah, yeah, he was.
He was going to expose Topaz and the whole operation as it were,
and then somehow or other he gets paid off or mum's.
Got all the dirt on his boss, right?
And he sells it on the phone. And he that's right.
That's something his. Son has done so.
They have to withdraw their allegations.
Lum. Basically says look to Topaz.
Look, it's been a guess, but let's sever our connections now.
More or less for some reason Topaz wants to stick around.
Yeah, that's. That's I think it could have
been done more plausibly if they'd sort of spend a little
more time around they had a little less of a lump in the
middle where so Topaz wasn't in it so much.
Well, I think this is where we have this, the time transition.
We, yes, we're led to believe six months have passed.
Yeah. Difficult.
They should have had some sort of, I don't know, even like a
montage sequence. Yeah.
Or I would have I would have chopped out some of that plot
that we both agree is a bit confusing and put more stuff of
showing his change, you know? Yeah, because the last time we,
we we seek Topaz, he's he's asking for one more chance to
prove himself. And he's, he's, Yeah, we're not
quite. Sure why he wants that one more,
no. And and then the next scene we
see him. He's a changed man totally.
Yeah, which is a little hard to swallow given we've just seen
him so embarrassed in the presence of Billy Whitenor's
character. Yeah, yeah.
But then the the the exposition is that while Benak Herbert
Lum's been away for six months in Africa, Susie has been of
teaching Topaz how to become refined, to dress well.
And he's got. The new voice now, hasn't he?
He's got the new voice. Yes.
And I guess it's kind of it's kind of what Sellers had always
wanted to become. He'd always used to be because
he'd be, he'd be the chubby youngster.
And he Sellers. Well, yeah, this.
This totally strikes me. It's peculiar in how few of the
films he made around this time. They almost seem to sort of
mirror his own career, past and present and future and what he
wanted to do, you know, it's essentially he wants to go from
being the chubby voice man to being the suave international
leading man. And that's is, of course, what
would happen. Well, they're culminating in
Casino Royale, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, it was.
Always a doomed to disaster really.
And then he goes into that sort of missing decade of flops and
sort of battling his white and having heart trouble and stuff.
So he wasn't, he didn't really have the DNI to be a sort of
suave leading man, but that's what he wanted to be.
I find Sellers, I call it the Wilderness years from from the
last big hit he had, which was there's a good on my suit and
then and then a string of films until Return of the Pink
Panther. Yeah, yeah.
Pink Panther, didn't it? Yeah, yeah.
And. But that string of films in
between, like The Block House Lovely, didn't.
Get a proper release. Great, great string of films to
watch, you know? Some of my absolute favourites
to see in that lost decay, you know.
I'm I've got a soft spot even for ghosts in the noonday sun.
Have you? Yeah, Blimey, there's.
A few people who would admit to that.
Yeah, well, I watched. We covered it on the show a
couple of years ago. And did you see Peter?
Medak's film about the making of it.
Yes, so it what we did was we we did a show on the film itself
and then the documentary follow up show, which was fascinating
story. Yeah, that's terrific.
That Peter Meddack film, Yeah, yes.
But no, I I that that period of sellers career was was was well
in the future. Are you going to tell me?
You like soft beds, hard battles as well?
No. What about?
Where does it? Hurt.
Do you like that? Oh I hate that's.
That's the film I hate the most. Where does it hurt?
It hurts. Everywhere, doesn't it?
I mean, it's terrible. It's.
Awful. We've again, we've covered that.
Oh, it's it's it's made a 2 hour.
Special for that one, right? It was about two hours.
It was just me and some guests going, oh, Blimey, you know,
what the hell was that about? Yeah, yeah.
But no, there's, I mean the the optimists of nine Elms.
I love the optimists. Of nine Elms would very much
like to do that one on Blu-ray. Oh yeah, I'd love.
To see that on Blu-ray, yeah, it's been.
About in a sort of, you know, various semi sort of decent
releases, but it'd be good to do it properly, yeah.
Again, that's that's not, I mean, this isn't this.
We couldn't describe Mr. Topaz as a comedy.
It's a is it a It's not really a comedy, is it?
It's it's. I guess it's a comedy drama or a
dramatic comedy drama. How about?
That, but yeah, well, the optimists as well.
I would class as a light, yeah. Light drama.
Maybe light drama. Light comedy, I guess.
Part of. The problem with Mr. Topaz is,
is how, how do you pitch it? You know, you've just had the
millionaires with him as the funny romantic lead, and there's
no romance in this and it's not that funny.
And it ends up with him becoming nastier than when he started.
So it's a bit of a acting. It's not really a classic
Hollywood trajectory, is it? No.
What do you think of? Sorry, we're going all over the
place. What do you think of his
performance in Never Let Go? I love.
That that's one of my absolute favourites.
I think he's great. I think that darker side of
sellers is something that I would have loved to have seen
more explored. I think the kitchen sink
Cellars, when you get only to complain that sort of the
beleaguered husband working in the library, these these sort of
slightly tougher parts he was doing around this time when he
shots Adam Faith's fingers in the top of the gramophone,
that's terrific, I think. You see the first stirrings of
that side of Cellars on screen with one of my all time
favourites of his The Naked Truth.
Oh yes. Yeah.
When he's obviously he's sunny wee Sonny McGregor.
But there's that scene where he's because he's a television
star, he's got some old man up on stage who inadvertently tells
him that he he's living in one of the flats that Sonny McGregor
secretly owns, which is like a he's a, he's a slum landlord on
the side and. Sonny McGregor gets angry
because the old guy keeps going on about this place or whatever.
And anyway, sell as as Sully shouts screams at the man at one
point, right? And it's not he.
Had that in him, didn't he? He had.
That in him, it wasn't funny, but it was the first indication
of, you know, he could do that. He could pull that out, but he
needed to. Yeah.
And and that's, again, just to
go back to the block outs. That's one of the reasons that's
so good. You know, the darkness was
really there. Yeah, there's obviously darkness
in Sellers his head and in his heart, which he could convey
quite eloquently in some of his roles.
Absolutely. Yeah.
So look, the film culminates
with the tables being turned on Bernack on habit.
Long, Topaz says. Stitched them up like a kipper
basically taking over the company, taking over his
company. The the company papers are
signed and his name and and Bennett can do nothing.
And then Topaz has has become grand and commanding and
arrogant and and he somehow takes everything for including
Chateau, the Chateau from from Bennett.
We get to the final scene and I don't know what's happened,
whether Susie shacked up with Topaz in the Chateau or what we
we don't find. Out.
I mean that that sort of, you know, the sort of concertinaing
of these last few sayings is a little bit sort of half hearted,
isn't it? It seems a bit crushed in this
last bit of the story. It does.
Yeah, most films have like a hero obviously and and they go
on a journey and the journey is typified by the hero tempted by
bad choices or bad decisions. And then they they realise the
error of their ways at the end of they find redemption.
And then this, this doesn't happen in Mr. Topaz because the
last scene is we see him meeting to mes his old friend Topaz you.
Haven't changed, have you? It's suggested in the newspapers
that you want to, son. Well, well, why don't you write
to the papers and deny it? It's true.
So you're making fun of me? Listen to me.
Everything I've done since I left the school is punishable by
law. If the world were properly
organized, I'd be in prison right now.
I don't believe it. Would I lie to you?
But how can you have changed so much?
You were the most honest man I've ever known.
Yes. And it lost me.
The only thing I ever cared for. My job at the school.
Now I'm a so-called crook. I'm rich and that, believe you
me, is the only thing that gains one respect.
Almost an ending that, you know, it's sort of strikes me this
kind of ending you'd get more in the 70s, you know, do sort of
bleak existential endings. Absolutely.
That's a really good point. Yeah.
It's a very muted, muted. That's a very muted film.
It's, it's very, it's a study of the cynicism of human nature and
it and it doesn't really there's, there's no, as I say
before, no redemption, no. Interesting again the the
reflection of Seller's own behaviours, you know, because I
mean, we read in all the books about how he would try and make
friends with people after he'd upset them by giving them very
expensive gifts. So sense that the journey that
Topaz has been on is a similar journey to one that Sellers is
having, you know. But I mean, it's definitely one
I would recommend people watch if they if they haven't seen it,
well, I guess if it. Doesn't, you know, fulfil all
its sort of aims and goals in its beginning?
It sort of certainly is a an amount of of a very fascinating
little set pieces and very entertaining set pieces and some
beautiful little character studies and very well written
and well performed scenes and sequences, certainly in the
first hour. Yeah, and it's Sellers were paid
£75,000 at the time to both star and direct and and he told a
reporter at the time that he hated, as we as we know, he
hated watching himself on screen.
He had the self loathing when he saw himself on screen.
Yet interestingly, Kenneth Tynan, who was a friend of
Sellers, I think he was with Sellers when they were watching
some rushes from the film during the filming of of it.
And and Kenneth Tyner said Sellers was watching himself on
screen as if it was a completely different actor and was enjoying
what he was seeing as well. So Sellers during the filming of
it wasn't was appreciative of what he himself was doing on
screen. It would appear, but then later
on, I guess, like he did with most of his films, he panned it
or badmouthed it, didn't he? Yeah, I think.
A lot of it you get the impression with Sellers is that
if the people tell him it's good, he'll think it's good, but
then if people say it's bad, then he'll just take that all on
board and totally rewrite his own view of it.
You know, he's sort of, he's very much swayed by what people
wrote about it, I think. And you?
Kind of expect, although that obviously it was his first
director's role, but you would kind of expect because of what
we know about sellers or believe about sellers, that he would be
a bit of a tyrant as a as a director on set.
You know, I'm not talking Kubrick with Shelley Duvall,
but, you know, I'm thinking he would still be quite a hard
taskmaster. But it would appear both Billy
Whitelore and Herbert Lum said that he was easygoing, easy to
deal with. Yeah.
He got good performances out of them, right?
So he must pay dividends because they all, they're all good in
it. Yeah, and Sellers himself.
There's none of that self indulgence that you would get.
Like, I mean, when Jerry Lewis started directing himself, you
know, suddenly his stuff got so overblown and stupid, you know,
whereas Sellers is really, he really keeps himself in check.
Yes, indeed. And so, yeah, the film got a got
a general panning when it was released.
Didn't really get that many good reviews.
A few. Decent reviews.
I was, you know, looking through the cuttings and, you know,
William White Bait in the New Statesman said.
It was brilliant in sports. Disjointed, but brilliant.
In the. Guardian, they said just the
right blend of pathos and humour.
But Sellers has given the wrong instructions to his cast.
They proceed into classical burlesque.
A waste of talent in the the people, they said.
Sellers himself brilliantly mingles the solemn and absurd,
and he's supported superbly by the rest.
So there were some decent reviews.
I mean most of the others all said it was a disaster, but a
few voices saying it was good. Yeah, but sellers obviously
didn't read the good ones. No, we.
Only remembered the bad ones. Which is to do when people write
things about you, yeah. So he he vowed never to direct
again. And and I read somewhere that he
he upon the panning, if you like, or the general sinking
without a trace of Mr. Topaz, he contacted Spike Milligan and
suggested they make some more good shows, but but then that
didn't happen. But then he every.
Every time he had a sort of crisis, he decided he was going
to do that, didn't he? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm trying to think, what was the film he did after this?
Was it be? Should have changed.
Yeah, that that's yeah, who can. Plays just after this.
Yes. Which, yeah, as we've said, is
one of his greatest sort of free international films.
One thing. I forgot to mention there is a a
musical, there's a song in the middle of this film which is,
which is called I Like Money and it was written by George Martin.
Yes, and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, who was a friend of
Solace. Yeah, and also.
Worked with Anthony newly, didn't he?
Yes. He did?
Yeah, newly. Another one of my great
favourites. Yeah.
So, yeah, a decent song, I mean. And you've got to remember that
as an actress, Nadia Grey was doing a lot of stuff on stage
around that time internationally, and so she was
no stranger to doing numbers of that sort it.
Reminded me that bit. That little sequence reminded me
slightly of the musical sequence in Rafifi.
Slightly. Seems slightly out of place,
didn't it? But interesting nonetheless,
yeah? An interesting film to talk
about, if not a perfect. Flawed film, of course, right?
You'd agree. Absolutely.
And I'm just reading your essay
from when the Blu-ray came out and I, I highlighted some of the
things you'd you'd said that I wanted, that I wanted to mention
to you. But we've, we've kind of covered
them already during the conversation.
But you said that I just want to read this.
But if you don't mind. Sellers was undergoing the
transformation that he'd perhaps always dreamed of, from podgy
radio voice man into a glamorous, attractively
enigmatic, self consciously nebulous film star figure, a
faceless comic chameleon of his own devising even.
Or being, well, an auto filmmaker performer in the
Chaplain Tati mould. Yeah.
That's pretty. Much what what you've said
already, but yeah, so I'm glad I haven't.
Changed my mind. No.
What did I say that? No, and look, the, the, the
Blu-ray is still available and it comes with a DVD if you don't
have a Blu-ray player. So it's about probably about
£15. Yeah, it's it's.
Well worth buying, don't you think?
Absolutely. Just recommend my if you want to
read my views on the Block House.
They're in my book that I wrote with William Fowler, The Bodies
Beneath the Flip Side of British Film and Television.
Available still on Amazon and all good retailers.
I will be, I'd, you know, I I will do that myself.
I would love to read that. I didn't know that.
I I did not know that that existed.
I'm ashamed to say that. Thank you.
All right, so you've got, I guess you've got fingers and
many pies. What are you working on or what
have you got that you're doing at the moment?
Well, listen to Plug if you can. Keep a secret, I can tell you
something and this mustn't go in the podcast.
All right, my God, I can't believe that.
That is amazing. Oh my God.
Oh, that's amazing. All right, so wow.
Any, any, any other Blu-ray releases apart from the one
you've just told me about? What am I doing at the moment?
Just finished doing Peter Weirs. The cards that are Paris that's
coming out. Very few.
Oh wow, you know that one I saw that saw.
That years ago, Yeah, it's really good.
Another film on with that called the Plumber which is may even be
better which is just done as a bonus feature.
I really like that too. Got the second lot of I don't
know. Did you see our Read a Fusion
set, The Daniel Farson Guide to Britain, Volume 1?
No, because. On there, there's a program
about Morris Woodruff, OH, which has Sellers and the Dion Cilento
one talking about Morris Woodruff.
And then we hear all about from Morris Woodruff.
We go around his house and that's in the 50s.
OK, you didn't. Know about that one I didn't
know about. That no OK, Although there's an
interview with Morris Woodruff on the one of the extras on the
Mr. Chair. Yeah, this is him much.
Earlier, much earlier actually, at the time when he was sort of
and Sellers, he's asked about why he believes him and all that
kind of stuff. So it's very interesting stuff.
And he's just come off the set from I'm All Right, Jack.
And so he's got the haircut and the chalk powder in his hair.
OK, wonderful. Oh yeah.
We're I'm doing volume 2 of that next.
Thank you, Vivek. And I must say much of our
latter conversation can't be included as it was very hush
hush, but hopefully all will be revealed later this year.
I'm very excited. So just before we wrap up the
show, some feedback, some listener comments on the recent
show we did with special guest Neil Brand.
I went down extremely well. Adrian Smith, former guest.
Recent guest. Actually, he said unlike many
fans who seem to Fast forward through the songs, when I was a
teenager I was making Ray Ellington compilation tapes from
my Goon Show collection. I still get a thrill every time
they nip around the back for the old Brandy there and he gets
going. Absolutely.
Donna Reese again, friend of the show, former guest, she said.
That was so good. Really love the Ellen Claire
story. How bittersweet.
Thanks Tyler O'Neill. Yes, wasn't it Palmer Eldritch?
Another great episode. I, too, used to skip the music
when I was a kid. Now, however, as I'm approaching
Uncle Oscar territory, I always listen and marvel at the
musicianship, the virtuosity. Thank you, Tyler and Neil.
Roger Stevenson says excellent show.
Neil Brand is a veritable gold mine of music knowledge, and
it's a pity there was so little time.
Perhaps you can have him on for 15 minutes every week, preceded
by the words round the back for Neil Brandy.
Yeah. So kind of play on words.
Finally, John Williams, who said this was very good.
If you also listen to the Goon pods with Gavin Sutherland and
Louis Barth, then across the three podcasts, you'll get a ton
of insight into why the Goon show music is so special.
Absolutely right. And yes, I would direct
listeners to those episodes. So thank you for listening as
always. And the show will be back next
week and and I'm not sure what it will be about yet, but it
will be something cracking no doubt.
Until then, enjoy the the warm weather as it gets warmer and
sunnier and I will see you on the other side of this week.
Bye now I. Like money, and I'm not ashamed
to say so, although. It sounds.
Unfaminine and brush. The pound, the.
Frank the Yankee dollar and the peso.
The language doesn't matter if it's all hard cash.
I like money, though it's usually presented as the root of
all unhappiness and strife. Well, I should.
Care if millionaires are troubled and tormented?
I hope I have that kind of trouble all my life.