My sleep schedule is all out of whack, so I am sitting here watching A Shot in the Dark, and I wonder- is there any one better at that style of comedy than Peter Sellers?
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by John Cole| 39 Comments
This post is in: Movies, Open Threads
My sleep schedule is all out of whack, so I am sitting here watching A Shot in the Dark, and I wonder- is there any one better at that style of comedy than Peter Sellers?
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Violet
Step away from the screens if you want to get your sleep back on track. Read a book, the paper kind, with a reading light set on low. The blue spectrum light on your TV isn’t helping your sleep.
David Koch
Chris Christie makes it official he won’t run for president in 2016.
Wag
No. There isn’t.
Does your Trunch bite?
No.
I thought you said your Trunch does not bite?
That is not my Trunch.
NotMax
My liking of Sellers’ skill is large, but he pales (IMHO) in comparison to pre-sound Buster Keaton.
Also, if you like the broad Sellers naif/klutz style, take a gander at Pierre Richard in the 1981 French film (NOT the dismal American remake) La chèvre (“The Goat”).
piratedan
@NotMax: I would also recommend any of the old Harold Lloyd pics you could get your hands on.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Wag: It’s a MacGuffin.
pseudonymous in nc
In the sitcom vein, perhaps Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em for the naif slapstick.
There’s probably already a 3,000-word online thinkpiece comparing Clouseau to Chauncy Gardner, but I can’t be bothered looking for it. Both were incredibly limiting roles given Sellers’ talent for minickry and multiple characters.
And odd to think that there was only five years between the Ealing comedies (Two Way Stretch, I’m All Right Jack) and A Shot In The Dark. Or that Sellers did Doctor Strangelove between the first two Pink Panther films.
scav
@NotMax: Pierre Richard did suffer from the American remake — Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire, as always, did not benefit.
Trois hommes et un couffin is the cratering I will never forgive Hollywood for though.
NotMax
@piratedan
Someone once described the difference between them as:
Harold Lloyd did funny things; Buster Keaton did things funny.
(No diss on Lloyd intended. Indeed, home of his stuntwork is all the more impressive knowing he was missing thumb and index finger on his right hand when he did them, the injury disguised on film with a prosthetic glove.)
NotMax
@NotMax
No edit function.
some of his stuntwork, not home of his stuntwork
Calouste
@David Koch:
Yeah, that completely kills him in the GOP.
Alison
I was laughing at myself earlier for buying my mom multiple Mother’s Day presents and still thinking of others, and I just realized this will be her first Mother’s Day since her mom passed last August. I wonder if I was subconsciously wanting to make her super extra happy since I know she’ll be feeling sad that day :/
SatanicPanic
@NotMax: I still think Chaplin is the funniest of the three. Or Harpo Marx depending on the day.
Quaker in a Basement
Anything better than Sellers? Well, there’s Christopher Guest, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NotMax:
My first exposure to Lloyd was a syndicated show in the mid-’70s (“Hooray For Harold Lloyd”?), which became post-mass, pre-football destination for pre-teen me. Then I kinda forgot back-burnered him…Until I saw this. Thank you, Preston Sturges!
I prefer Keaton and Chaplin to Lloyd these days (more pathos, more wonder), but not by much.
Calouste
@NotMax:
If you’re talking about French naïfs/klutzes: Jacques Tati.
Hattie
No.
Bruce S
No – never was, probably never will be.
Every attempt to remake Pink Panthers – even with excellent talent – has been horrible.
I love Sellars’ earlier English comedies – stuff like Heavens
Above, Two Way Stretch and I’m All Right Jack. Brilliant.
ruemara
No. Not even a little. We’re suffering through the pale shadows of greatness. It’s best when they discover how they can be funny, rather than trying to be a Sellers clone.
Origuy
Rowan Atkinson comes close sometimes, more in Blackadder that as Mr Bean, I think.
Fax Paladin
…Not anymore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74YLwinLT7M
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Origuy: I liked Blackadder, but Mr. Bean became tiresome very quickly.
Thoughtcrime
Also check out Sellers in The Party, another movie he did with Blake Edwards directing.
Birdie Num Num.
piratedan
well if you’re looking for something similar to Sellers triumphant run of films in the 60’s, the Beatles A Hard Day’s Night is pretty representative and I would also recommend some forgotten comedies from that era, The Great Race, The Twelve Chairs, The Wrong Box to name a few
Alison
@piratedan: God, I love A Hard Day’s Night. My parents and I could probably recite the whole thing together.
“I fought the war for your sort!”
“I bet you’re sorry you won.”
bago
H. Jon Benjamin? He does a mean spy.
gogol's wife
AND YOU KILLED HIM IN A RIT OF FEALOUS JAGE! Love that movie. George Sanders is priceless.
Roger
I am not even French but if Jerry Lewis had made fewer films and retired in 1963 he’d be regarded as a great comic genius.
And although his films are rather poor (as were many of Sellers’) Rowan Atkinson is the nearest thing to an heir and successor this side of the pond.
There was a 2004 Sellers biopic starring Geoffrey Rush which is worth looking out for – like so many comics the man was a grade#1 shit.
Maude
It was said about Buster Keaton that he knew when something was funny. It had to do with timing.
It you can, watch The General.
handsmile
Pierre Etaix.
With the resolution of a decades-long dispute with a distribution company and successful restoration of degraded negatives, the feature films of this French comedian and professional clown are available once more. And because they have been so long out of circulation, these films, all made in the 1960s, have been a revelation. Etaix’s films correspond in subject and style to those of Sellers’ triumphs of the same period.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2012/10/the-return-of-pierre-etaix-and-le-grand-amour.html
Two weeks ago, TCM devoted an entire evening to several of Etaix’s full-length and short films. Film Forum, the bastion of independent cinema in NYC, is just completing a festival of his work.
You’ve almost certainly never heard of him (me neither ’til recently), but keep an eye out for his movies, especially YoYo and La Grand Amour. He’s every bit Sellers equal in this comedic style.
(I should probably say that I would never have nominated such an obscure figure here, but Calouste (#16) sagely mentioned Jacques Tati, with whom Etaix has been compared.)
Sasha
Isn’t “Peter Sellers” its own style of comedy to begin with?
fasteddie
@Violet:
I like f.lux for windows to block the blue after dark.
http://stereopsis.com/flux/
it says it is available for mac, linux and iOS, but I cannot personally vouch for it.
Twilight app on my android phone works well also.
Paul Gottlieb
No! Sellers was the best
jon
I love these conversations. Not to find the best, but to find all the very good stuff.
Rafer Janders
@Roger:
Steve Coogan is right — Steve Coogan, and not Geoffrey Rush, should have played Sellers.
John M. Burt
As my wife points out, it’s not much like A Shot in the Dark, but The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn is a Peter Sellers comedy you probably haven’t seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYBwhPe8lE
NotMax
Speaking of dishwashers, one can cook in them while cleaning the dishes and utensils, too. Although the guy in the linked video doesn’t use butter and herbs, which makes it even tastier.
Oh, and run the full Normal Cycle, including Dry. Economy will undercook it, Cool Dry will undercook it, Pots & Pans cycle will overcook it.
NotMax
Ignore #37. Posted in wrong thread.
More coffee, please!
mclaren
There is one person even better than Peter Sellers at portraying a buffoon with deadpan seriousness:
Ronald Reagan.
Although Ronnie didn’t realize he was the butt of the joke.