Ghost in the Noonday Sun

Last updated

Ghost in the Noonday Sun
Ghost in the Noonday Sun.jpg
Directed by Peter Medak
Written by Evan Jones
Spike Milligan
Based onnovel by Sid Fleischman
Produced by Thomas Clyde
Gareth Wigan
Starring Peter Sellers
Spike Milligan
Cinematography Michael Reed
Larry Pizer
Edited by Ray Lovejoy
Music by Denis King
Distributed byTyburn Entertainment (UK)
Columbia Pictures (USA)
Release date
1985 (home video)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million [1] [2]

Ghost in the Noonday Sun is a 1974 British comedy film directed by Peter Medak starring Peter Sellers, Anthony Franciosa and Spike Milligan. The film suffered a difficult production due to Sellers's erratic behavior and was not theatrically released. [3] Medak described the film as "the biggest disaster of my life" in 2016. [4]

Contents

The script was written by Evan Jones and Ernest Tidyman (uncredited) with additional dialogue by Spike Milligan. The film was produced by Thomas Clyde and Gareth Wigan with cinematography by Michael Reed and Larry Pizer. The title and some of the plot details are based on the book of the same title by Newbery Medal-winning children's author Sid Fleischman.

Plot

In the seventeenth century, [1] pirate captain Ras Mohammed (Peter Boyle), accompanied by his incompetent Irish cook Dick Scratcher (Peter Sellers) and three crewmen, buries three chests of treasure on an unnamed island. Scratcher then kills the captain and three crewmen. He returns to the pirate ship and proclaims himself the new captain, as only he knows the location of the treasure. He soon discovers his predecessor's treasure map was drawn in disappearing ink. Fourteen years later, the pirate ship reaches Ireland, although Scratcher believes they are on a Greek island. The crew behaves gluttonously, with the exception of the debonair and cerebral Pierre Rodriquez (Anthony Franciosa).

They abduct an Irish boy, Jeremiah (Richard Willis), whom Scratcher believes can see ghosts and will therefore be able to contact Ras Mohammed's ghost for directions to the treasure. After seeing off the British Navy by posing as Portuguese fishermen suffering the "red plague", the pirates sail to Algiers, where Jeremiah is taken prisoner. The pirates encounter Scratcher's old friend Billy Bombay (Spike Milligan) and later release Jeremiah.

After threats of mutiny by a pirate named Abdullah (Thomas Baptiste), the pirates end up back at the island of buried treasure. They dig up Billy Bombay's treasure chest of silver cannonballs and fire them at Billy Bombay and his six brothers, leaving only Billy alive. Separately, Pierre, Jeremiah and Abdullah discover Ras Mohammed's treasure. The film ends with Scratcher buried up to his neck in sand, while Billy Bombay is tied to a tree, and the two shout insults at each other.

Style

The film's opening seven-minute prologue is shot in the style of a black and white silent film, complete with caption cards. [5]

Sellers' onetime Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan appears halfway through the film and worked on revisions to the script. This results in some Goonish style banter and effects, such as undercranked film sequences making movement seem faster, dialogue and sound effects. When Scratcher and Billy Bombay meet, Milligan says to camera, "It's that smelly old sea-goon, Dick Scratcher" - an apparent reference to The Goon Show character Ned Seagoon.

Cast

Production

Development

The novel Ghost in the Noonday Sun was published in 1965. The New York Times called it a "rollicking tale". [6] The Los Angeles Times called it "a rousing tale." [7]

Sellers persuaded Medak, a friend of his, to make the film. [1] "He was an incredible guy," said Medak of Sellers. "His invention would go into supersonic flight. You couldn't stop him. He had classical comedy genius." [8] Wolf Mankowitz wrote the first draft but it was later estimated a dozen writers worked on the script. [9] According to Sellers "It started life as a straight pirate yarn. But we got to work on it and turned it into a crazy comedy. You could call it "Goons at Sea". I think it's what people want." [2] The film was the second movie financed by Somerville House, a Montreal based investment company who were interested in getting into the film industry. [10]

Shooting

The film was shot in and off the coast of Kyrenia, Cyprus, and at Bray International Studios near Maidenhead, England. "Everything started going wrong days before shooting began," said Medak. "The Greek captain delivering the pirate ship to Kyrenia's magnificent seventh century harbour was so drunk that he crashed the ship into the quay instead of the narrow strip of water." [11]

Peter Sellers arrived on location displaying strange behaviour, attributed to the end of his relationship with Liza Minnelli. [12] Shortly after filming began, Sellers began to lose confidence in the project and when Spike Milligan arrived to shoot his scenes, Sellers asked him to assess the footage that had been shot thus far. Milligan looked at the rushes and said "this is on a disaster course". He outlined his ideas to Medak and Sellers, who approved. [13] Milligan rewrote the script, but Sellers did not turn up for the first day of filming the new scenes, claiming he was too ill to work. He decided a vase in his Swiss home might be facing the wrong way so he sent his secretary to Gstaad to take the vase back to London. Once this was done, Sellers agreed to resume shooting. Medak shot film around Sellers. He liked Milligan's script changes and wanted Milligan to film during the day and rewrite at night. Milligan was reluctant so Sellers tried to get production shut down. Medak refused. [13]

Sellers subsequently became deliberately uncooperative and would often pretend to be sick. On one occasion he was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack, only for Medak to spot newspaper photographs of Sellers dining with Princess Margaret in London two days later. [1] Sellers caused further upset by agreeing to shoot a cigarette commercial during one of the few off-days in the filming schedule, drafting in an unwilling Peter Medak to direct it, and then on the day refusing to be filmed holding the cigarette packet because he claimed to be the chairman of the Anti-Smoking League. [14] Sellers had personally invited British cinematographer Larry Pizer to shoot the film, only to later fire him after a party once production had commenced. Sellers also fought on set with co-star Tony Franciosa, at one point refusing to appear in the same shot as Franciosa. "It's all kind of bewildering," said Franciosa during filming. "Half the time I'm not actually sure what anyone's trying to do. Some of this comedy is so way out I couldn't begin to describe it. But I'll say this: it's an experience." [2]

"As an artist, he was a genius," said Medak of Sellers. "As a person, he was insane. He was depressed in real life, like the typical comedian who under the surface is suicidal... He was incredibly manipulative. He created situations where there was tremendous confusion and then he'd gain the upper hand. He destroyed the whole film... On a good day he was sensational but his moods changed. He couldn't remember what he'd said to you days before. But I remember, working with him, there were moments when it was heaven. We laughed so hard the tears rolled down our cheeks." [8] After the final scene was filmed, involving Sellers and Milligan both being physically restrained, the crew forced them to listen to a song detailing the production's woes. [15]

Release

Medak says after he attended a private screening with Sellers and Milligan: “We all just wanted to kill ourselves.” [1] The film was shot in 1973 and has a copyright notice in the opening credits for 1974. Columbia Pictures deemed the film not worthy of cinematic release. "Even Peter Sellers was bad in it," said Fleischman later. [16]

According to Medak, Sellers wanted to buy back the film from Columbia, and for the director and Milligan to redo the narration and re-edit the film for Sellers to get it released. But then Sellers called and said, "I can’t buy back the film because it’s been written up for twice as much as it cost." [1] It was ultimately released on Betamax and VHS home video in 1985, and on DVD in 2016.

The Ghost of Peter Sellers

In 2016, it was announced that Peter Medak was directing a feature-length documentary about the ill-fated production, called The Ghost of Peter Sellers . The film originated with Paul Iacovou, Managing Director of Vegas Media in Cyprus, who got Medak involved. [11] It was released in 2018 after some production delays. [17] [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sellers</span> English actor and comedian (1925–1980)

Peter Sellers was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show. Sellers featured on a number of hit comic songs, and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spike Milligan</span> Irish comedian (1918–2002)

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.

<i>The Goon Show</i> BBC Radio show broadcast from 1951 to 1960

The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Sykes</span> English comedian, writer and actor (1923–2012)

Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Franciosa</span> American actor (1928-2006)

Anthony George Franciosa was an American actor most often billed as Tony Franciosa at the height of his career. He began his career on stage and made a breakthrough portraying the brother of the drug addict in the play A Hatful of Rain, which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He reprised his role in its subsequent film adaptation, for which he won the 1957 Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Eccles, also referred to as 'The Famous Eccles' or 'Mad Dan Eccles', is the name of a comedy character, created and performed by Spike Milligan, from the 1950s BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show. In the episode "The Macreekie Rising of '74", Peter Sellers had to fill in for the role in Milligan's absence. Very occasionally, he was referred to as 'Field Marshal' Eccles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sid Fleischman</span> American writer

Albert Sidney Fleischman was an American author of children's books, screenplays, novels for adults, and nonfiction books about stage magic. His works for children are known for their humor, imagery, zesty plotting, and exploration of the byways of American history. He won the Newbery Medal in 1987 for The Whipping Boy and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1979 for Humbug Mountain. For his career contribution as a children's writer he was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1994. In 2003, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators inaugurated the Sid Fleischman Humor Award in his honor, and made him the first recipient. The Award annually recognizes a writer of humorous fiction for children or young adults. He told his own tale in The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life (1996).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tutte Lemkow</span> Norwegian actor (1918–1991)

Tutte Lemkow was a Norwegian actor and dancer, who played mostly villainous roles in British television and films. His chief claims to mainstream familiarity were his roles as the fiddler in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and the old man ("Imam") who translates the inscription on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Joseph McGrath is a Scottish film and television director and screenwriter. He was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art in the late 1940s and early 1950s where his energy and talent was admired by his contemporaries.

Peter Medak is a Hungarian-born film director and television director of British and American productions.

Major Denis Bloodnok is a fictional character from the 1950s BBC Radio comedy The Goon Show. He was voiced by Peter Sellers.

<i>Down Among the Z Men</i> 1952 British film

Down Among the Z Men is a 1952 black-and-white British comedy film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring the Goons: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe.

<i>The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn</i> 1956 British film

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn is a 30-minute comedy film starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Dick Emery. The film was made in November 1955, and released in 1956.

<i>The Last Goon Show of All</i>

The Last Goon Show of All is a special edition of the BBC Radio comedy programme The Goon Show commissioned as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the BBC. Simulcast on radio and television on 5 October 1972, the performance reunited Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe as well as other contributors to the programme's original run. It was later released as a long-playing record and on compact disc. The video recording of the television broadcast was also released on VHS and later on DVD, although with some omissions. In early October 2007, 35 years after the original broadcast, a full unedited version was broadcast on BBC 7, the digital radio channel dedicated to re-runs of classic shows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adelphi Films</span>

Adelphi Films Limited was a British film production company. With its sister company Advance, it produced over 30 films in the 1940s and 1950s and distributed many more. Adelphi linked Gainsborough Pictures and the raw “kitchen sink” dramas of the early 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Grafton</span>

James Douglas Grafton, was a producer, writer and theatrical agent. He served in World War II as an officer in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment and was awarded the Military Cross for his actions during Operation Market Garden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Stephens</span>

Lawrence Geoffrey Stephens was a BBC radio scriptwriter, best remembered for co-writing The Goon Show with Spike Milligan. Stephens was a regular writer of the show for the first two years, and then returned to The Goon Show to assist Milligan. From his association with Milligan, Stephens became involved with Associated London Scripts (ALS), and was said to have been "one of the most eye-catching characters, in the earliest days of the company...he played a significant cameo role in the first phase of success for ALS".

<i>Bridge on the River Wye</i> 1962 studio album Comedy by The Goons

Bridge on the River Wye is an album by members of the British comedy group The Goon Show and other humorists. It was produced by George Martin for EMI's Parlophone Records. It is a parody of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. For legal reasons, the 'K' at the start of Kwai was edited out.

The Ghost of Peter Sellers is a 2018 documentary film directed by Peter Medak and produced by Paul Iacovou. A cautionary tale about filmmaking, it recounts the sequence of how Peter Sellers, one of the biggest comedy actors at the time, in 1973 was attached to a pirate-themed comedy film for Columbia Pictures entitled Ghost in the Noonday Sun. He lost confidence in the film immediately and tried to sabotage it, first firing the producers before turning on his friend, Peter Medak. Despite an illustrious career and the passing of 43 years since the unraveling of the production, Medak is still reeling from the disastrous experience and carrying the wounds inflicted by Sellers and the film's failure. The Ghost of Peter Sellers received its premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival as part of the Giornate Degli Autori section, and was premiered in the United States at the 2018 Telluride Film Festival.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alberge, Dalya. "Tantrums and tears: how Peter Sellers turned a pirate film into a shipwreck". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Peter Sellers Goes to Sea Hall, William. Los Angeles Times 22 Dec 1973: b11.
  3. ↑ "How Peter Sellers sabotaged his own movie". Chortle. 8 February 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  4. ↑ Bernstein, Paula (21 March 2016). "Director Peter Medak Plans to Resurrect The Ghost of Peter Sellers". Filmmaker. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  5. ↑ "Ghost in the Noonday Sun Review". TV Guide. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  6. ↑ THE GHOST IN THE NOONDAY SUN. By Sid Fleischman. Illustrated by Warren Chappeli. 173 pp. Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown. $3.95.: For Ages 8 to 12. BERKVIST, ROBERT. New York Times 24 Oct 1965: BR34.
  7. ↑ A Three-Foot Shelf for Younger Readers Taylor, Mark. Los Angeles Times 26 Dec 1965: m25.
  8. 1 2 The Peter Principle Christon, Lawrence. Variety, suppl. MGM 80th Anniversary; Los Angeles Vol. 394, Iss. 10, (Apr 19-Apr 25, 2004): 14,16.
  9. ↑ Standing still film McNay, Michael. The Guardian 18 Dec 1973: 10.
  10. ↑ A lot of ifs for $20 Million in Canadian film. Martin, Robert. The Globe and Mail; Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]18 Feb 1978: P.35.
  11. 1 2 The ghost of Peter Sellers Cyprus Mail; Nicosia [Nicosia]01 Feb 2016.
  12. ↑ Norman, Alix (1 February 2016). "The ghost of Peter Sellers". Cyprus Mail. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  13. 1 2 'Pete was insane and evil. Spike was slightly touched but with a heart of gold. I loved them both' Farnes, Norma. The Guardian 3 Nov 2003: 2.2.
  14. ↑ Farnes, Norma (2004). Chapter 11 of Spike: An Intimate Memoir, Harper Perennial, London. ISBN   1841157872
  15. ↑ Ed Sikov (19 August 2011). Mr Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers. Pan Macmillan. pp. 4–. ISBN   978-1-4472-0714-6.
  16. ↑ Books for Youngsters Not Child's Play to Author: [Home Edition] PATRICIA WARD BIEDERMAN. Los Angeles Times 26 July 1987: 1.
  17. ↑ Bernstein, Paula (21 March 2016). "Director Peter Medak Plans to Resurrect The Ghost of Peter Sellers". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  18. ↑ "The Ghost of Peter Sellers". The Ghost of Peter Sellers. vegasmedia.com. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.