Mr. Strangelove_ A Biography of Peter Sellers - Ed Sikov [57]
Margaret Rutherford is the ticket seller, Mrs. Fazackalee, except that she sells no tickets.
Peter Sellers, as the weary projectionist, Mr. Quill, drinks:
MR. QUILL: (all but overcome with emotion) Well, uh, Mr. Spenser, it’s like this ’ere. I would like you ’a know that I, well, I appreciate what you said, and what you’re tryin’ ’a do. And believe me, I don’t say this lightly—I am absolutely determined that I won’t take another drop! Not another drop I won’t touch, I won’t!
MRS. FAZACKALEE; I don’t think you may realize, Mr. Spenser, what a big sacrifice this may mean for Mr. Quill.
Basil Dearden may enjoy a reputation in Britain for a certain liberalism in his social problem dramas—after this comedy he made Violent Playground (juvenile delinquency, 1958), Sapphire (racism, 1959), and Victim (homosexuality, 1961)—but The Smallest Show on Earth bears a strikingly antipopulist contempt for movie audiences. Patrons of the Bijou, after the Spensers get it up and running, are comprised of a bunch of cruel rubes, teenage makeout artists, and a whore. At the same time, Dearden isn’t above sweetening his nasty streak with easy sentimentality when Sellers’s Mr. Quill projects a silent melodrama to an audience of two—Mrs. Fazackalee and Old Tom, the usher (Bernard Miles):
Mr. Quill (describing the movie to the Spensers): “Old film. Classic, you might say. I’ve saved ’em for years, bits of ’em. We used to run ’em like this in the old days, but, not for years we haven’t done it. Now it seems like old times once more.”
But the look on Sellers’s face saves it, an expression of meditative warmth. To his great credit as a dramatic actor-in-training, Peter learned in The Smallest Show on Earth how to subvert maudlin dialogue by photogenically sustaining silence.
• • •
Peter cut and released his third single record, “Any Old Iron,” with “Boiled Bananas and Carrots” on the flip side. A banjo-strumming, incomprehensibly fast-talking novelty song, “Any Old Iron,” made it onto the British pop charts and stayed there for eleven weeks in the autumn. It even rose briefly into the Top Twenty.
His reputation kept growing and, inexorably, he won his first costarring role—as a faux-Scottish extortion victim in the black comedy The Naked Truth (1957). Written by Michael Pertwee and directed by Mario Zampi for the Rank Organization, The Naked Truth traces several prominent citizens’ attempts to avoid, stifle, and finally snuff the unctuous editor of a Confidential-like scandal sheet. Terry-Thomas, with whom Peter shared top billing, is a philandering lord, about to be exposed. Peter is a thickly brogued television star, beloved by his elderly audience and a slumlord on the side.
With a studio audience in place and the cameras rolling, an enthusiastic announcer heralds his appearance: “The star of the show, the man who made it all possible! The jack of all faces! The king of kindness! And the ace of good hearts, ‘Wee Sonny’ MacGregor!” Enter a dimple-grinning Peter, literally jumping onstage in a roaring plaid kilt, a matching plaid banner on his shoulder held in place by a pin, a pair of equally screaming kneesocks, and an awfully frilly shirt. He’s the Liberace of Brigadoon:
WEE SONNY: (Squeak of pleasure, gasp, grin and . . .) A great big welcome t’ all th’ old folk an’ the bonny young lad’s ’n lassi’s! I can’t tell the difference, you know! (giggle).
Wee Sonny is about as Scottish as Peter himself, a fact Sellers reveals by pushing his brogue just a step too far. The blackmailing editor (Dennis Price) pays him a slimy visit and lets Wee Sonny know that while he doesn’t much care about the fake accent, he’s fascinated by the chance to reveal to the TV star’s aged fans the famous owner of a dismal old people’s ghetto in Eastditch. Soon thereafter, a guest on