Was Peter Sellersa comic genius? Yes. Was he a great actor? Yes, though he's often denigrated as a mimic (true, he could only get the hang of a part once he got the voice, but every actor starts with something, even if only a hat.)
Could Sellers turn in a bad performance? Definitely. Catch his Nayland Smith in "The Fiendish Plot of Doctor Du Manchu," esp. Contrasted to his performance as Fu. Or "Murder By Death," a movie so awful the combined comic talents of Alec Guinness, Peter Falk and David Niven couldn't save it. Sellers' performance was dreadful and I'm not one of those people who think ethnic roles should be played by people of that ethnicity (it's called "acting," folks).
I don't like people who play amateur psychologists so I won't put Sellers on a make-believe couch like some of his biographers. He could play almost anything if he caught the humor of it. His talent was for comedy, not pathos.
But he wanted to be a leading man and he wasn't a leading man type. He envied the great Cary Grant who "played himself" but Grant actually played a personality carefully tailored by the Studios. Good as he himself was, Sellers sometimes seemed naive about how acting worked. He should have modeled himself more on Olivier, who always had to hide behind things, if only a moustache.
He was offered some great roles (like the Gene Wilder part in "The Producers") that were wildly wrong for him. He was offered roles in 1960s epics that would have swallowed him. But some of the things he accepted were real head-scratchers. Like "The Bobo."
Admittedly, some movies look good in the ideas stage that don't pan out, but I can't imagine any stage where this singing matador movie sounded good. It looked pretty drear in the TV GUIDE entry the night I sat up watching it because Sellers was and is one of my favorite actors.
This is not even for Sellers completists. It's dreadful. Sellers' performance is the worst kind of crime: It's dull. And whether in his early, 1950s comedies, early Clouseau, his Kubrick flicks, and many more of his better movies (really only about half his final output) and some of his dogs, Sellers is eminently watchable. Even playing the March Hare in "Alice in Wonderland" or the tiny but pivotal role of Dr. Pratt in "The Wrong Box," i can't tear my eyes off him and he's hilarious. He's not watchable here, even at the end, when he's . . . I don't know why it's a spoiler, it's on the poster, but I won't give away the ending. One has to cling to something rather than just hoping this mess is over quickly. I nearly gnawed my own leg off to get free.
If you must watch this horror, bring something to read so your time isn't altogether wasted.
Could Sellers turn in a bad performance? Definitely. Catch his Nayland Smith in "The Fiendish Plot of Doctor Du Manchu," esp. Contrasted to his performance as Fu. Or "Murder By Death," a movie so awful the combined comic talents of Alec Guinness, Peter Falk and David Niven couldn't save it. Sellers' performance was dreadful and I'm not one of those people who think ethnic roles should be played by people of that ethnicity (it's called "acting," folks).
I don't like people who play amateur psychologists so I won't put Sellers on a make-believe couch like some of his biographers. He could play almost anything if he caught the humor of it. His talent was for comedy, not pathos.
But he wanted to be a leading man and he wasn't a leading man type. He envied the great Cary Grant who "played himself" but Grant actually played a personality carefully tailored by the Studios. Good as he himself was, Sellers sometimes seemed naive about how acting worked. He should have modeled himself more on Olivier, who always had to hide behind things, if only a moustache.
He was offered some great roles (like the Gene Wilder part in "The Producers") that were wildly wrong for him. He was offered roles in 1960s epics that would have swallowed him. But some of the things he accepted were real head-scratchers. Like "The Bobo."
Admittedly, some movies look good in the ideas stage that don't pan out, but I can't imagine any stage where this singing matador movie sounded good. It looked pretty drear in the TV GUIDE entry the night I sat up watching it because Sellers was and is one of my favorite actors.
This is not even for Sellers completists. It's dreadful. Sellers' performance is the worst kind of crime: It's dull. And whether in his early, 1950s comedies, early Clouseau, his Kubrick flicks, and many more of his better movies (really only about half his final output) and some of his dogs, Sellers is eminently watchable. Even playing the March Hare in "Alice in Wonderland" or the tiny but pivotal role of Dr. Pratt in "The Wrong Box," i can't tear my eyes off him and he's hilarious. He's not watchable here, even at the end, when he's . . . I don't know why it's a spoiler, it's on the poster, but I won't give away the ending. One has to cling to something rather than just hoping this mess is over quickly. I nearly gnawed my own leg off to get free.
If you must watch this horror, bring something to read so your time isn't altogether wasted.