British Comedy Guide

Peter Sellers/Pink Panther? Page 4

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ June 1 2012, 12:56 PM BST

Nor does the fact that Sellers didn't play Cleuseau in every film when he was alive.

Nor did he always have that bumbling French eccent, Kipper...

By the way, having the sequel in the next year would be considered back-to-back to us, but since much more films were made during the Sixties it may not be thought of as such at the time.

Quote: Tursiops @ June 1 2012, 3:38 PM BST

Never read biographies - no-one interests me that much.

If that includes memoirs, you're missing a treat if you've not read Spike Milligan's war memoirs, in which Sellers is mentioned in the last volume, which isn't about the war.

A couple more Sellers gems for Lee if he hasn't seen them yet are Only Two Can Play, very classy comedy drama with one of his better milder acting roles. Many say they think his acting is over the top, well it depends what he's being asked to do imo - Pink Panther and other slapstick comedies of the ilk get a full on caricature effort from PS as did the best film he did I'm Alright Jack as the memorably Corbynistic Fred Kite. But OTCP and the even rarer but superb Hoffman have Peter's two best straight acting roles and are highly recommended for sceptics to see how well he could act. I say rare, I've got them both on two boxsets so you can get them and both have great selections on them and were good value buys.

But I've just seen on your TV schedule that one of the very few Sellers vehicles I still haven't seen is on TPTV, a channel I had no idea existed, so that's excellent! I had little clips of Soft Beds, Hard Battles on audio tape or CD years back with one of his OTT roles in a slated sex comedy but one of the funniest characters he did, a bumptious old British General that made me cry it was so funny. So I cannot wait to watch this.Geek

"I'm Alright Jack" one of the best films ever made with Peter Sellers in superb form. Never tire of watching it.

Great films all and a third vote for I'm Alright Jack and especially............especially Being There. I don't think of myself as a Sellers fan. Too complex. All that filming of his kids involving wires across his estate in respect of everything they did.

But on the other side of the coin - completely contradictory, this - I must be a very big fan. He was in very many laugh out loud productions plus even on the point I have mentioned he could be seen domestically as the visual equivalent of the great if completely bonkers Joe Meek. So of their times when technology was leading to greater experimentation. And, yes, on that basis wholly contemporary for anyone interested in history or especially in the case of PS comic art rather than simply appreciating what generally emerges from the impetus today of just churning a lot of stuff out, bad and good.

It feels alive, albeit often with flaws - not just going through the motions.

Let's not forget Ghost in the Noonday Sun or The Great McGongall.

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