comedy1962 color 105 min.
Director: John Gullermin
CLV: $49.95 - available
           1 disc, catalog # CC1452L

Waltz of the Toreadors is an unusual amalgam of influences and creative hands. Adapted from a wittily satirical play by French playwright Jean Anouilh, it was written for the screen by Peter Sellers' friend Wolf Mankowitz (of such diverse projects as The Day the Earth Caught Fire and Casino Royale), directed by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno), and executive produced by Julian Wintle of Independent Artists, who would a few years later turn The Avengers into an international phenomenon.

The plot concerns retiring General Leo Fitzjohn (Sellers), an aging warrior who cannot adjust to the infirmities of advancing age, especially where his sexual dalliances are concerned. He has used his sexual wanderings to avoid confronting the realities of life, particularly his marriage to his nagging, hypochondriac wife Emily (Margaret Leighton). Fitzjohn spends his days riding his horses harder than he should, looking longingly at the nubile students of a nearby girls' school, and chasing after the maids in his sprawling mansion. He tells his friend Dr. Bonfant (Cyril Cusack), "Look at me -- all the gold trimmings, and underneath a boy's heart, dying to give his all."

Just as the General seems lost to ennui, who should arrive at his estate but Ghislaine de St. Euverte (Dany Robin), the object of his true desires for the past 17 years, who asks him to announce their never-consummated affair and leave his wife. Suddenly he realizes that his problem isn't frustration, but lack of courage -- he cannot give up his estate and reputation, nor the honors and respect that go with them. After a series of comic misadventures, Ghislaine and Robert (John Fraser), Fitzjohn's ward and aide, fall in love while Fitzjohn faces the truth: He may have been a lion in battle but he is a coward in love and life. And thus he resumes the satisfying distractions of his sexual peccadilloes.

Critics familiar with Anouilh's play felt that the film was cheapened by the pratfalls, while admitting that nobody could fall off a balcony and into a barrel of water with as much comic aplomb as Peter Sellers. In fact, producer Julian Wintle was not trying to slavishly recreate the play, but rather to reach what he saw as a newly sophisticated film audience, emphasizing the story's sexual element.

Fitzjohn's sex drive, which becomes apparent in the movie's opening minutes, sets the tone for the entire film, to a degree that shocked British audiences and critics. In fact, Waltz of the Toreadors heralded a new era in British film of openness in its treatment of sexuality -- it arrived alongside Britain's "kitchen sink dramas" and foreshadowed films like The Knack and How to Get It and Tom Jones. The "Swinging Sixties" had arrived. As Fitzjohn says to Robert in their first scene together, "You get the urge sometimes, I hope -- because life without the urge is unthinkable." (This mix of sexuality, slapstick, and sumptuous color photography helped establish the formula that worked well for Wintle when he took over as producer of The Avengers two years later.)

The character Fitzjohn had been crafted by screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz (once a close friend of Sellers' who had fallen out with the actor over a failed business deal), to appeal to the actor on several levels. Fitzjohn was, in one respect, an extension of Major Dennis Bloodnok, a blood-and-thunder military character (winner of the Military Cross for emptying trash cans during battle) that Sellers had invented during his years on the BBC's legendary Goon Show. But Sellers also had long desired to be thought of as a serious actor, in the manner of his colleague Alec Guinness -- whose work he ended up gently tweaking as the aging Fitzjohn, amid the same castle on the Sussex Downs where Guinness' Kind Hearts and Coronets had been shot -- and relished the serious scenes in Waltz of the Toreadors.

But there were even more personal resonances, both immediate and long-term, between actor and character. His own marriage was breaking up and he'd developed a romantic fixation with Sophia Loren. In the view of many who knew him, he was poignantly effective as Fitzjohn, a man held captive by his loneliness. And Sellers' stampede rush through as many roles and films as possible during this period (six movies in 1962 alone) echoed Fitzjohn's ways -- both with women and horses -- the boy dying to give his all.

-- Bruce Eder
Bruce Eder is a film historian and a frequent contributor to The Criterion Collection audio commentary tracks.

Cast
General Fitzjohn: Peter Sellers
Ghislaine: Dany Robin
Emily: Margaret Leighton
Robert: John Fraser
Doctor: Cyril Cusack
Estella: Prunella Scales
Sidonia: Denise Coffey
Agnes: Jean Anderson
President of the court: Raymond Huntley
Undertaker: Cardew Robinson
Vicar: John Le Mesurier
Mrs. Bulstrode: Vanda Godsell

Credits
Produced by: Peter de Sarigny
Directed by: John Guillermin
Screenplay by: Wolf Mankowitz
Based on the play by: Jean Anouilh
Director of photography: John Wilcox
Production designer: Wilfrid Shingleton
Art director: Harry Pottle
Production supervisor: Arthur Alcott
Costume designer: Beatrice Dawson
Film editor: Peter Taylor
Music composed by: Richard Addinsell
Conducted by: Muir Mathieson

About the transfer
Waltz of the Toreadors is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.75:1. This new digital transfer was created from a 35mm intermediate positive, made from the original negative, and a 35mm soundtrack print.


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