Tripwire Reviews The Peter Sellers Centenary Collection Out On Blu-Ray Now

A Very British Comedy Institution

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows reviews The Peter Sellers Centenary Collection out on Blu-Ray now…

Peter Sellers Centenary Collection
THE LADYKILLERS (1955)

DIRECTED BY Alexander Mackendrick

CAST Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Katie Johnson & Jack Warner

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH (1957)

DIRECTED BY Basil Dearden

CAST Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers, Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles

CARLTON-BROWNE OF THE F.O. (1959)

DIRECTED BY Roy Boulting, Jeffrey Dell

CAST Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Luciana Paluzzi, Ian Bannen, Thorley Walters, Raymond Huntley, Miles Malleson, John Le Mesurier, Marie Lohr, Ronald Adam

I’M ALL RIGHT JACK (1959)

DIRECTED BY Roy Boulting

CAST Peter Sellers, Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price, Liz Fraser, John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Margaret Rutherford

TWO WAY STRETCH (1960)

DIRECTED BY Robert Day

CAST Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge, Bernard Cribbins, Liz Fraser, Lionel Jeffries, Maurice Denham, Irene Handl, Beryl Reid, Noel Hood 

ONLY TWO CAN PLAY (1962)

DIRECTED BY Sidney Gilliat

CAST Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling, Virginia Maskell, Richard Attenborough, Kenneth Griffith,

THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW (1963)

DIRECTED BY Cliff Owen

CAST Peter Sellers, Lionel Jeffries, Bernard Cribbins, Davy Kaye, Nanette Newman, Bill Kerr, Ed Devereaux

HEAVENS ABOVE! (1963)

DIRECTED BY John & Roy Boulting

CAST Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Isabel Jeans, Eric Sykes, Bernard Miles, Ian Carmichael, Irene Handl, Brock Peters, Miriam Karlin, Joan Miller

2026 marks the centenary of Peter Sellers’ birth so Studio Canal have just released a box set of eight of his films, all restored in 4K and some seeing the light of day in 4K for the first time. Sellers was arguably the greatest comic actor of his time and these films are a reminder of this.

It kicks off with the strongest title here, American transplant director Alexander Mackendrick’s The Ladykillers. It’s the only colour film included in the set and it’s head and shoulders above anything else in here too in terms of its quality. Katie Johnson plays sweet old lady Mrs Wilberforce, who takes in a motley gang who hire her rooms out led by Professor Marcus (Guinness in one of his trademark twisted character roles) and a group that includes the murderous Louis (Lom), spivvy Harry Robinson (Sellers) and Claude (Parker) have hired the elderly woman’s rooms under the pretext that they are a classical music group. But the truth is that Marcus is actually planning a robbery and the rest are members of his gang. The Ladykillers is a true ensemble piece but Sellers shows here that he was a comedy actor with real range while Guinness is magnificently unhinged as the ‘mastermind’ of this motley crew. The irony here is that Mrs Wilberforce is far sharper than any of the criminals, a fact which proves their eventual undoing. The restoration here looks pin sharp and lush and it really brings one of Ealing’s most important films to vivid life. Sellers isn’t the main focus here but he is exceptional as is the rest of the cast. It does however set the bar rather high for the rest of the box set.

The Smallest Show on Earth is about a married couple, Jean and Matt Spenser (real-life couple Mckenna and Travers), who are left a dilapidated cinema by his great uncle in an unprepossessing part of the country. Sellers plays the dipsomaniac projectionist Percy Quill while support comes from Bernard Miles as usher Old Tom and familiar British cinema face Margaret Rutherford as fellow cinema employee Mrs Fazackalee. It also includes Leslie Phillips as Matt’s uncle’s lawyer Robin Carter. Sellers is suitably demented as the elderly projectionist but it is just a supporting role. British veteran director Basil Dearden invests this film with some real warmth while the viewers are rooting for the Spencers despite the fact that they are a little bit bland in terms of characterisation. It’s fun to include a lesser known film in here as Sellers brings his customary comedic talents to bear despite the fact that he isn’t the main attraction here. The restoration also makes it pop for the viewer too, giving it a crisp and immersive feel.

By 1959, Sellers was a star thanks to his turn in Ealing’s The Ladykillers although the actor who gets top billing in Carlton-Browne of the FO is the epitome of British cinema at the time, Terry-Thomas. Thomas plays the eponymous figure, the slightly hapless foreign office mandarin, Cadogan De Vere Carlton-Browne. Here we have a very slight tale of a minor British foreign office official who is drawn into a diplomatic row when a former British colony, the fictional Gallardia, tries to play the country against the Soviets for their own ends. Sellers plays the island’s prime minister Senor Amphibulos and his role is definitely a supporting one. Thomas was obviously a talented comedy actor but Carlton-Browne Of The FO feels dated and outmoded these days and Sellers feels sidetracked here. Bannen raises the bar a little as the young king of Gallardia but despite the presence of director Roy Boulting as co-director here, Carlton-Browne of The FO is a flimsy comedy, only of interest to those who are British comedy completists. The restoration though does at least make it look more sharp on screen.

I’m Alright Jack, released the same year, as Carlton-Browne is an ambitious British comedy starring Ian Carmichael as hapless stooge Stanley Windrush who finds himself caught between the machinations of union leader Fred Kite (Sellers) and the company bosses in the shape of Bertrand Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) and Sidney De Vere Cox (Richard Attenborough). It isn’t Sellers’ film again but he does play a very pivotal role this time around and he is brilliant as the plotting Kite. Carmichael is excellent as the dupe at the centre of this while Attenborough shows his range as an actor. Sellers was such a versatile comic actor which is one of the reasons why he was such a huge star. Despite its slightly odd ending where it descends into farce, I’m Alright Jack is a well-made satire about UK industry where neither side really comes out well out of it. Again, restored it does come to life with an extra visual sharpness.

In Two-Way Stretch, he plays lag Dodger Lane, a criminal who has learnt how to play the system, in a cell with all mod cons. With fellow convicts Jelly Knight (Lodge) and Lennie Price (Bernard Cribbins), he cooks up a plot with Soapy Stevens (Hyde-White pretending to be a member of the clergy) to break out of prison for one night and steal a haul of valuable diamonds. Of course, nothing goes quite to plan. Two-way Stretch is a film with a fairly simple conceit but thanks to the quality of the cast that also includes Lionel Jeffries as the malevolent but incompetent chief prison officer Crout and Maurice Denham as the prison’s soft touch prison governor just called The Governor here, it is a far better film that it should have been. Sellers is magnificent as ever, offering a sleazy louche performance that makes it impossible to dislike Lane despite his criminal leanings. Hyde White is also fantastically questionable as Soapy Stevens, a man who hides his disreputability behind his posh demeanour and his smarmy fake piety. Faling into the genre of light British prison films, it is one of the better offerings. Visually it is decent enough restored but it’s not exactly the sort of film where you notice the difference.

Only Two Can Play, directed by Sidney Gilliat, probably best know for working on the successful St Trinian’s series of films, is based on the novel That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis, which was published in 1955. Sellers plays a librarian in Swansea, who finds himself torn between his wife Jean (Maskell) and glamorous married woman Liz (Zetterling), who wants to have an affair. Sellers was a genius at accents and here he invests John Lewis with real humour and warmth. Both Zetterling and Maskell offer very solid support as the other sides of the love triangle. We even have a cameo from Richard Attenborough as the former rival for Jean’s affections, playing a pompous Welsh playwright. Only Two Can Play is a very solid comedy drama with Sellers excelling at treading the fine line between the two here. In terms of its restored version, there is an extra clarity that the new version provides.

The Wrong Arm Of The Law is a 1963 comedy drama where three Australian crooks disguised as police begin to rob the local criminals. This forces London’s criminal fraternity to begrudgingly join forces with the police to bring the Aussies down together. Sellers plays cockney con man Pearly Gates, who affects a fake French accent running a bridal gown shop while Lionel Jeffries is senior police man ‘Nosey’ Parker. It’s a very light comedy but Sellers is brilliant in it and a supporting cast that includes Cribbins as Irish London face Nervous O’Toole and Nanette Newman as Valerie, a girl who straddles both sides of the illegal coin, which lends it a touch of class. Written by Galton and Simpson, who are best known as the writers of Hancock’s Half Hour, The Wrong Arm Of The Law is a much better film than it should be thanks to Sellers and his versatility as an actor.

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Mandatory Credit: Photo by ITV/REX/Shutterstock (782981jk)
‘The Wrong Arm of the Law’ Film – 1963 –
Pearly Gates (Peter Sellers) shares an intimate moment with Valerie (Nanette Newman)
GTV ARCHIVE
Romulus Films/Granada International

Finally, there’s Heavens Above. This is a Boulting Brothers film about Brummie vicar Rev John Smallwood (Sellers) who through a case of mistaken identity is sent to a very posh parish, the town of Orbiston Parva. Once there, he attempts to improve the lot of the town’s poor through a series of well-meaning but misguided schemes with the assistance of Lady Despard (Jeans), the wealthiest woman in the town. Unlike something like Two-Way Stretch, this is very much a satire. Heavens Above is a film which takes a gentle pop at humanity as well as the church of England and like Two-Way Stretch, it is Sellers as its protagonist that acts as its focal point. It also displays his versatility as an actor as his portrayal of the naïve vicar here engages with viewers the same way that rogue Lane did in the other film. The supporting cast from the likes of Cecil Parker as the Archdeacon, Ian Carmichael as the rather hapless other Rev Smallwood and Eric Sykes as patriarch of the gypsy family Harry Smith lends Heavens Above some extra gravitas as well. There’s even a small role from Black US actor Brock Peters here who went on to have a long career in film. The film does become more and more outlandish when Smallwood is forced out of the town and into a new role as a face-saving exercise from the church. But it is Sellers that keeps the viewer engaged throughout. The 4K restoration really brings this film to life on the small screen too with details that may have been missed before really coming to the fore here.

All of these films show the range of Sellers’ ability, albeit some with a greater focus on the man himself. The Ladykillers is the standout film but others like Heavens Above and Two Can Play are worth a watch especially if those who pick this up have never seen them before. Sellers was a rare genius and this box set does go some way to encapsulate his unique abilities.

JOEL MEADOWS

The Peter Sellers Centenary Collection is out now on Blu-Ray from Studio Canal.