Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Peter Sellers | ... | Sir Guy Grand | |
Ringo Starr | ... | Youngman Grand | |
Isabel Jeans | ... | Dame Agnes Grand | |
Caroline Blakiston | ... | Hon. Esther Grand | |
Wilfrid Hyde-White | ... | Captain Reginald K. Klaus (as Wilfrid Hyde White) | |
Richard Attenborough | ... | Oxford Coach | |
Leonard Frey | ... | Laurence Faggot | |
Laurence Harvey | ... | Hamlet | |
Christopher Lee | ... | Ship's Vampire | |
Spike Milligan | ... | Traffic Warden 27 | |
Roman Polanski | ... | Solitary Drinker | |
Raquel Welch | ... | Priestess of the Whip | |
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Tom Boyle | ... | My Man Jeff |
Victor Maddern | ... | Hot Dog Vendor | |
Terence Alexander | ... | Mad Major |
Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) adopts homeless bum Youngman (Sir Ringo Starr) to be heir to his obscene wealth, and immediately begins bringing him into the intricacies of the family business, which is to prey upon people's greed by use of the vast holdings of the Grand empire. They leave no stone unturned as sporting events, restaurants, art galleries, and traditional pheasant hunts turn into lurid displays of bad manners and profiteering. Things climax at the social event of the season, the inaugural voyage of the new pleasure cruiser, "The Magic Christian". Written by Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>
Peter Sellers stars as Sir Guy Grand, a fabulously wealthy eccentric who gets to do anything and everything he wants to by liberally greasing the palms of those less fortunate (and wealthy) than himself. Lacking an heir, he adopts a homeless derelict (Ringo Starr) who becomes Youngman Grand and joins him in a series of wild and wacky misadventures. In his apparently never ending quest to prove that everyone has their price, Sir Guy and his newly adopted heir are joined by a host of other notables in cameo roles including Richard Attenborough, John Cleese, Laurence Harvey, Christopher Lee, Roman Polanski, Yul Brynner and Raquel Welch. The movie is based on a book by Terry Southern (who wrote the screenplay for another Peter Sellers classic - "Dr. Strangelove") with Monty Python alumni Graham Chapman and John Cleese lending a hand in the screenplay. This is a movie that has everything: great writers, great actors, well-known comtemporary celebrities and a rapid-fire barrage of parodies and spoofs of almost everything we hold dear, including greed, gluttony, racism and incompetency. If this movie does not make you laugh out loud (frequently) you should consider getting treatment for a severe case of humor deficiency.