Mr. Topaze | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Sellers |
Written by | Pierre Rouve Johnny Speight (script associate) |
Based on | the play Topaze by Marcel Pagnol |
Produced by | Pierre Rouve |
Starring | Peter Sellers Nadia Gray Herbert Lom Leo McKern |
Cinematography | John Wilcox |
Edited by | Geoffrey Foot |
Music by | George Martin Georges Van Parys |
Production company | Dimitri De Grunwald Production |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Mr. Topaze (U.S. title: I Like Money) is a 1961 British film directed by Peter Sellers [1] and starring Sellers, Nadia Gray, Leo McKern, and Herbert Lom. [2] [3] It was Sellers' directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Pierre Rouve based on the 1928 playTopaze by Marcel Pagnol. [4]
Out of distribution for many years, a print exists in the British Film Institute National Archive, which makes it available for viewing on their website. [5] The film was shown during the 2003 Cardiff Independent Film Festival. [6] It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on 15 April 2019 by the BFI.
Mr. Topaze is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town who is honest to a fault. He is sacked when he refuses to give a passing grade to a bad student, the grandson of a wealthy Baroness. Castel Benac, a government official who runs a crooked financial business on the side, is persuaded by his mistress, Suzy, a musical comedy actress, to hire Mr. Topaze as the front man for his business. Gradually, Topaze becomes a rapacious financier who sacrifices his honesty for success and, in a final stroke of business bravado, fires Benac and acquires Suzy in the deal. An old friend and colleague, Tamise questions him and tells Topaze that what he now says and practices indicates there are no more honest men.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Peter Sellers has chosen, in the early scenes, to adopt the diffident, rueful manner and accent of Alec Guinness, while he leaves it to Leo McKern, all snorts and twitches, to present the lively caricature performance. With Michael Gough's sympathetic Tamise and Martita Hunt's battleship Baroness in support, these school episodes have a dawdling, easy-going humour. With the appearance of Suzy and Castel Benac, however, and the shift from atmosphere to plot, the film goes adrift. Sellers, as director, has neither the necessary control nor the ability to direct actors playing straight, as opposed to character, parts. He leaves Herbert Lom and Nadia Gray amateurishly at sea, he shows no stages of the transformation but simply invites us to accept the fact of Topaze's newly-discovered acumen, and he lets the sympathy seep out of his own characterisation without finding anything to put in its place. Don Ashton's art direction and some agreeable locations give Mr Topaze an elegant surface; but this is essentially a film of minor pleasures and major inadequacies." [7]
In The New York Times , Bosley Crowther wrote, "for the most part, Mr. Sellers keeps himself too rigidly in hand – and the blame is his, because he is also the fellow who directed the film. He avoids the comic opportunities, takes the role too seriously," concluding that, "As a consequence, he's just a little boring – and that's death for a Sellers character." [8]
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote: "This new version of Pagnol's Topaze has a diluted script by Pierre Rouve that runs about an hour before the plotwheels begin to turn." [9]
Leslie Halliwell said: "Predictable, sluggish, character comedy, with a good actor unable to make it as a star. Or as a director." [10]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "Peter Sellers directed himself in this adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol play, so he has only himself to blame. ... Beset by the likes of Herbert Lom, Leo McKern and Nadia Gray, Sellers makes an endearing innocent at large. Alas, his direction lacks the edge the idea needed." [11]
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.
Reginald "Leo" McKern was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British, Australian and American television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. His notable roles include Clang in Help! (1965), Thomas Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons (1966), Tom Ryan in Ryan's Daughter (1970), Harry Bundage in Candleshoe (1977), Paddy Button in The Blue Lagoon (1980), Dr. Grogan in The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Father Imperius in Ladyhawke (1985), and the role that made him a household name as an actor, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in the British television series Rumpole of the Bailey. He also portrayed Carl Bugenhagen in the first and second instalments of The Omen series and Number Two in the TV series The Prisoner.
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Topaze is a 1928 play in four acts by the French writer Marcel Pagnol. It tells the story of a modest school teacher who is fired for being too honest and decides to become a dishonest businessman. The play premiered on 9 October 1928 at the Théâtre des Variétés. It was performed on Broadway in 1930 with Frank Morgan in the title role.
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Topaze may refer to:
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Topaze is a 1951 French comedy film directed by Marcel Pagnol and starring Fernandel, Hélène Perdrière and Marcel Vallée. It is based on Pagnol's own 1928 play of the same name, which has been adapted for the screen a number of times including a 1936 film directed by Pagnol.
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The British actor and comedian Peter Sellers (1925–1980) performed in many genres of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. He appeared in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, recorded a number of hit comic songs and became known internationally through his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin".
Alfred-Adolphe Pasquali was a French actor and theatre director.
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Topaze is a 1936 French comedy film directed by Marcel Pagnol and starring Alexandre Arnaudy, Sylvia Bataille and Pierre Asso. It is based on the Pagnol's own 1928 play Topaze. A separate adaptation Topaze had been directed by Louis J. Gasnier three years earlier.
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"Topaze" was an American television play broadcast on September 26, 1957, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Ellis St. Joseph wrote the teleplay based on Marcel Pagnol's 1928 play, Topaze. Vincent J. Donehue directed, Martin Manulis was the producer, and Robert Drasnin composed the music. Sterling Hayden was the host, and Ernie Kovacs and Carl Reiner starred.