I find myself with mixed feelings and in the middle on this flick. It has it's funny moments, but overall I found myself looking for more in the way of satirical dialog and inspired sight gags. For Peter Sellers, his first starring film role was a good warm up for the characters he would portray in 1964's "Dr. Strangelove", a much bolder and biting vision of Cold War hysteria. The Museum of Ancient Tortures is merely a blip on the screen compared to the ironies of Strangelove's 'War Room'.
For me, the movie more than anything was a neat time capsule reminder of life almost a half century ago, with America's population 'only' a hundred seventy five million, the Yankees defeating the Milwaukee Braves (remember them?, Warren Spahn and Lou Burdette) in the World Series, and another British film "Look Back In Anger" making the rounds in theaters. The Sellers character Montjoy did get my attention with a clever line about a prospective international ally - "It's not from Red China, it's from the other one." Perhaps in keeping with the movie's subdued satire, the construction of the Q-Bomb as a gadgetized football helped with it's symbolism as an object to be precariously balanced among the world powers. You just knew that at some point the game would have to be played out in gridiron fashion, to be capped by Tully's goal line heroics.
Chalk one up to Columbia Pictures for a bit of unabashed self promotion; when the Grand Fenwick welcome home reception got under way, there was a momentary glimpse of a reveler carrying a hand made sign with the declaration - 'Hail Columbia'!
I caught the film today on Turner Classics, and one of the trivia bits revealed was how much Peter Sellers admired the work of Sir Alec Guiness as an actor. Sellers was inspired by Guiness' 1949 film "Kind Hearts and Coronets", in which the British icon portrayed eight different characters. In that regard, Sellers does an admirable job and always keeps you guessing with his versatility.
For me, the movie more than anything was a neat time capsule reminder of life almost a half century ago, with America's population 'only' a hundred seventy five million, the Yankees defeating the Milwaukee Braves (remember them?, Warren Spahn and Lou Burdette) in the World Series, and another British film "Look Back In Anger" making the rounds in theaters. The Sellers character Montjoy did get my attention with a clever line about a prospective international ally - "It's not from Red China, it's from the other one." Perhaps in keeping with the movie's subdued satire, the construction of the Q-Bomb as a gadgetized football helped with it's symbolism as an object to be precariously balanced among the world powers. You just knew that at some point the game would have to be played out in gridiron fashion, to be capped by Tully's goal line heroics.
Chalk one up to Columbia Pictures for a bit of unabashed self promotion; when the Grand Fenwick welcome home reception got under way, there was a momentary glimpse of a reveler carrying a hand made sign with the declaration - 'Hail Columbia'!
I caught the film today on Turner Classics, and one of the trivia bits revealed was how much Peter Sellers admired the work of Sir Alec Guiness as an actor. Sellers was inspired by Guiness' 1949 film "Kind Hearts and Coronets", in which the British icon portrayed eight different characters. In that regard, Sellers does an admirable job and always keeps you guessing with his versatility.