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By Root 1526 0

‘You mean hot for the money men,’ Terry said. Sellers then paid out of his own pocket, and we shot it down on the banks of the Thames with St. Paul’s and all that in the background. Sellers paid for that himself, and later on Commonwealth United gave him back the money. But they wouldn’t do it under the Statue of Liberty. They wanted the movie, they wanted Peter Sellers, ‘We’ll give you anything, do it, do it, do it. . . .’ But, when it came to that, as Terry said, it was too hot for them.”

The Magic Christian, shit scene and all, was given a Royal Charity world premiere at the Kensington Odeon Theater in London on December 11, 1969, to benefit Britain’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Princess Margaret, president.

Spike Milligan provided the last word some years later: “It’s a very funny film. I loved every inch of it. You’ve really got to hate people to love this film.”

• • •

Throughout 1969, as the Beatles’ personal behavior toward one another deteriorated—Paul was getting bossier, John wanted the group to break up, George resented Paul telling him how to play the guitar, Ringo was very nice—they recorded an anthem not of mere tolerance but of a more genuine acceptance, touched as it was with resignation. “Let It Be,” they sang. Some of their recording sessions—not only for “Let It Be” but other songs as well, along with their rooftop concert—were filmed for inclusion in the film Let It Be (1970).

Peter turns up in a scene that wasn’t used in Let It Be’s final cut, for obvious reasons. The band is sitting on couches taking a break when their good friend Pete shows up and pleasantly offers them some knockout grass. It’s a facetious conversation punctuated by a lot of merry laughter, but it still doesn’t seem terribly far off the mark in terms of Peter’s habits at the time, not to mention the Beatles’ own drug use.

Alas, the deal doesn’t go down. Paul claims that he’s stopped smoking pot; to be precise, Paul claims that a fictitious biographer has claimed that he has stopped smoking pot. Peter expresses great disappointment at this news, especially, he says, because he so fondly recalls the fantastic weed they’d once shared. As the dejected Peter makes his exit, Paul pushes things a little too far by advising Peter not to leave any syringes on the floor of the studio on his way out. Paul explains that he’s worried about the band’s notoriety since John Lennon’s 1968 drug bust. Cut to a close-up of Lennon sitting apart from the others. John is noticeably displeased at Paul’s little joke.

• • •

Peter helped three other friends make another film in 1969—the disastrous A Day at the Beach (1970). Simon Hessera directed and Gene Gutowski produced, from a script by Roman Polanski.

“We wanted Hessera to make his debut as a director,” Polanski relates. “That’s what he wanted to do, and he was really fantastic at acting and imitations, and we were convinced that he could do a good picture. Simon sat down with Gérard Brach, a writer with whom I wrote several scripts, and wrote a script called The Driver. [Brach cowrote the screenplays for Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), Cul-de-sac (1966), and The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967).] Peter wanted to play a lead in the film—whatever he could do—[but] when I read that script I didn’t believe there could be a movie made out of it. I thought we’d better find something else. I read a book by a guy called Heere Heeresma, a Dutch writer, did an adaptation of it, and suggested that Hessera do the film. Peter volunteered to do a cameo, and that was it.

“We were having a little party or dinner or something like that at the home of my partner at that time, Gene Gutowski, and [the producer] Robert Evans was there with Charlie Bludhorn, the head of Paramount; we were pushing for Paramount to finance the picture. Simon was there, and Peter was there, too, and of course we started doing one of our routines. They were tremendously amused—particularly Charlie—at what Simon and Peter were doing, and somehow started the notion that they were going to give some money