Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) User Reviews

An Edwardian tragic-comedy

[theowinthrop · 6/10 · 2 March 2005]

Peter Sellers first successful dramatic role of any stature is as General Leo Fitzjohn in this version of the play by Jean Anouilh. Although a success in the military (we see over the years as he rose to his present rank) he was married to a woman who was bed-ridden due to emotional problems, and he was never quite able to carry out his lifelong romance with his French girlfriend. His wife (Margaret Leighton) is a shrew, but she is one who never stopped loving her unfaithful husband - so she will never give him the divorce he'd want. His mistress (Dany Robins) is attractive, and ever hopeful. Unfortunately she has met the General's adjutant, Lt. Finch (John Fraser), who she finds available and able to return her love. So this four sided parallelogram develops as the center of the plays plot.

Sellers has had other affairs, all of which Leighton has had to live through. In one it turns out he had a child. Yet he is unable to break the chain linking him with this woman, who is both sympathetic and neurotic. He yearns and schemes to be with his mistress, but every time something (from a broken leg to a drinking contest) interferes. In the end he watches as he loses her, and he considers suicide.

Sellers had never had such a sad character before. Maybe the alcoholic movie projector operator in "The Smallest Show on Earth" came closest, but he was not the central figure of that film. Sellers showed the depressing effects of aging on the general, once a gallant physical specimen. He is fully aware of his aging, and his failure to attain true happiness (just the temporary enjoyment of sexual pleasure). As he contemplates his mortality, and plans suicide he tells his closest friend (Cyril Cusack), "I don't want to die." But he can't prevent that inevitability.

He did well with the role of Fitzjohn, and it paved the way for some of those bright figures such as his too Christian minister in "Heaven's Above", his triple roles in "Lolita" and in "Dr. Strangelove", and his final great part of Chance in "Being There". Fitzjohn was a taste of what was to come.

Did the film which the public saw reflect the director's intentions?

[bardolph-33215 · 7/10 · 8 March 2020]

John Guillermin's previous film featuring Peter Sellers, Never Let Go, in which he was cast as Meadows, a smooth but viciously evil criminal, enabled Sellers to prove that his talent went beyond depicting "comic" petty crooks. His role as the bibulous, womanising General Fitzjohn in this film, built upon the character of lovable rogue Major Denis Bloodnok, who Sellers played in the Goon Show, enabled him to expand his range further. Fitzjohn's interaction with his invalid wife is movingly realised. The moment when he exclaims "My God, I hate you!" is chilling. There is a moment of cinematic genius when Guillermin dissolves from a close-up of the General's (then) young and beautiful wife watching unhappily as her husband flirts with another woman to her present day ruined face filled with unhappiness. I recall that when the film was released Guillermin complained bitterly that the producers had spoilt his film by cutting in extra comic sequences, but I can't find reports of this interview on line. Can anyone help?

"Young terriers grow old"

[brogmiller · 6/10 · 8 September 2020]

General Leo Saint-Pé and his 'mad' wife Amelie had first appeared in 1948 in 'Ardele' of Jean Anouilh. These two characters resurfaced four years later in 'Waltz of the Toreadors' by the same playwright. The first of these, in common with most of Anouilh's plays, is rarely performed nowadays. The second however has enjoyed many revivals and the role of the General has proved irresistible to such luminaries as Eli Wallach, Hugh Griffiths, Melvyn Douglas, Trevor Howard and Sir Ralph Richardson.

In this 'loose'(to put it mildly) adaptation by Wolf Mankowitz we have Peter Sellers. Therein lies the problem.

He has given us not so much a character as a caricature and whether by intention or not, an extension of Major Bloodnok from 'The Goon Show'.

The film's poster declares this to be 'a rollicking comedy' in which 'Peter Sellers strikes again' and has Sellers, resembling someone from an Ealing comedy, pinching a maid's bottom!

Critics from the first have been quick to point out the contrast in Anouilh's play between comedy and pathos, farce and cruelty.

Director John Guillermin resented that some of the comedy scenes from his film were cut. Judging by the ones left in the exclusion of the others would seem to be a blessing.

It is indeed the cruelty that is most apparent here. The cruelty of Life with its resentments, regrets, lost illusions, dashed hopes and the inexorable passing of Time.

The tragedy mainly belongs to the General's wife, played to perfection by the superlative Margaret Leighton. As the 'maiden' who after seventeen years is still determined to consummate her love for the General (if you can believe that you can believe anything!) we have the divine and delectable Dany Robin. Her Gallic style and intoxicating French accent are alas totally at variance with the other 'anglicised' characters and the Sussex setting. As the local doctor Cyril Cusack as always quietly steals all of his scenes.

The original play was styled by Anouilh as one of his 'grating black comedies'.

What a pity that the makers of this film, with an obvious view to the 'box-office', have lacked the courage to realise his concept. A pity also that this play has never been filmed in France by a top notch director. Watching this raises the question once again as to whether Sellers was a good actor or just a brilliant mimic. For this viewer at any rate, the jury is still out.

A haunting, wonderful movie

[psccrealock34 · 4 October 2003]

This is a wonderful little movie which displays Peter Sellers's acting genius both for comedy and serious drama. It is a haunting story of a general at the end of his career, about how much was real and not real in his life, and about his weaknesses and distractions. It is easy to project certain kinds of political observations on to this movie, as was done in an earlier review by wjfickling in his comment about the advantages that men have over women, but it is just as easy to project the opposite. The genius of the movie is that it tells a story of the bitter sweetness of a man's life that is outside the politcally correct "truth du jour" and can be taken directly, as it is.

The waltz is glorious. The film itself is pretty depressing.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 1 May 2022]

Utilizing the voice that he would making immortal as Inspector Clouseau, "Pink Panther" star Peter Sellers plays a retiring General who doesn't want anything to do with the wife, Margaret Leighton, he hasn't spent time with in years, preferring to go after his pretty younger mistress, Dany Robin. Legion, once a great Beauty, has become an ailing true, taking lovers of her own but never quite satisfied. She both loves and hates her husband, and has remained waiting for him simply so she can torture him for the misery she says he's caused her. You get to see what a raving Beauty she wants was in the scene where he Squires her around the floor, Romancing her and eventually making her his wife. But that brief moment of happiness has turned into years of misery, and what she has turned into has made her even more vindictive against him.

As for Robin, she's suicidal after learning that Sellers is going to go home to see his wife, afraid she's lost him, and her efforts to drown herself has her rescued by a man she ends up falling in love with. It's obvious that both Sellers and Leighton are having difficult times accepting their advancing age, even though they live in the lap of luxury in a glorious castle. When she finally goes off on him, refusing to divorce him, all of the light-hearted moments of the first 90 minutes of the film practically disappear as it becomes a very bitter story of two people who hate each other completely and have declared war on each other without the benefit of a divorce attorney. It's very colorful with beautiful location footage including castles, bridges and great green meadows, running late but Sellers and leaton certainly have no color in their lives. He's great playing both himself as a younger man and as an older one, and Leighton is amazing in showing the haggard battleaxe she's become in spite of having once been quite lovely. A twist at the end helps lighten things up a bit, but the film has many mood swings that affects its overall impact.

showcases one of, Peter Sellers more meticulously crafted comedy creations.

[Weirdling_Wolf · 7/10 · 27 February 2023]

This saucy, appetizingly frothy, superbly executed period farce finds comedy chameleon, Peter Sellers on tremendously engaging form as ageing cocksman, General Fitzjohn, this lugubrious Lothario's persistently thwarted attempts to finally bed the great love of his life, Ghislaine (Dany Robin) after a frustratingly protracted, 17 year courtship still provides a chucklesome wealth of tastefully rendered ribaldry! John Guillermin's joyous 'Waltz of the Toreadors' is blessed with a truly dynamite cast, with exquisite work from, Cyril Cusack, Margaret Leighton, and, Dany Robin, an effervescent text, and, perhaps, it might also be argued that, John Guillermin's charming, fabulously frolicsome farce showcases one of, Peter Sellers more meticulously crafted comedy creations.

Pretty well acted but amazingly dull after a while

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 12 November 2006]

To me, this seemed like a one-joke kind of film where the joke isn't all that funny to begin with--certainly not enough to sustain a film. Peter Sellers plays a horny old general who has just retired from the British army circa 1908 or so. Over the course of the film, you learn that not only does he hate his wife but can't keep his eyes off other women. An old flame returns and you think they might run off together, but only moments later he's chasing some other tart. That is pretty much the entire film. Peter does a nice job imitating this sexual libertine and rotten family man who constantly tells his daughters they are stupid and ugly. While I guess his cruelty is supposed to be funny, I didn't particularly care for it.

The bottom line is that the acting is just fine, but the script is not. There just isn't enough to support a movie and my interest wained about mid-way through the film.

A minor gem, worth seeing

[wjfickling · 8/10 · 28 April 2002]

I saw this on cable recently, out of curiosity more than anything else, and I wasn't sure I was really going to watch it. However, it turned out to be quite a little gem that I would recommend for those of us who have a few years on them. Peter Sellers, who was only in his 30s at the time, puts on aging makeup and plays a retired general around the turn of the 19th century who is still chasing skirts (Sellers appears in flashbacks looking his real age). It is a bittersweet look at marriage, sexual desire, maturity, the advantage men have over women with respect to aging, etc. And, to its credit, it doesn't have the stock Hollywood ending one might expect.

Sufficient wit at the expense of imagination.

[rsoonsa · 10/10 · 25 April 2002]

Based quite loosely upon a play of the same name by Jean Anouilh, this film has been designed not merely as a showcase for the oversize comedic talent of Peter Sellers, but also, due to excessive producer interference, as a sex farce where character predominates over language, after the manner of a well-wrought and linear work of theatre. A droll script by Wolf Mankowitz transposes the action from post World War II France to early 20th century Sussex, arranging the characters in the story-propelled manner of the playwright, whose intensive exploration of the spirit becomes increasingly prominent as the work runs its course, greatly assisted by sensitive performances from Sellers, as the libidinous General Leo Fitzjohn, and by Margaret Leighton as Emily, his suffering wife. The plot spirals about the freshly retired General Fitzjohn and his longwhile Gallic inamorata, Ghislaine (Dany Robin) who have, as seen in a series of flashbacks, never been able to complete their love, but who are apparently finally going to be able to do so; that is, if a series of latter-day obstacles might be overcome. The picture is directed smoothly by John Guillermin, and there are excellent performances from Cyril Cusack as Dr. Grogan, the General's best friend, and John Fraser as a naive subaltern assigned to Fitzjohn, while a magnificent score is contributed by Richard Addinsell, one of his best for the screen, notable for its unreserved use of a minor key to accompany romantic and comic events. Unlike his Absurdist contemporaries, Anouilh never abandoned a sense of existential despair throughout his dramas, and this production succeeds in creating tension between Fitzjohn's sense of loss of place and his ability to forge forward after his natural urges, as evidenced by the delicious ending.

Poor Peter Sellers with an even poorer wife facing comfortless old age

[clanciai · 9/10 · 23 June 2020]

This is one of the most arguable comedies ever made, because of its very difficult character. Is it really funny at all? Isn't it just terribly silly? The main character of it is pathetic, as Peter Sellers and Margaret Leighton as his wife both are extremely pathetic, but one thing cannot be denied here: the acting is exceptionally outstanding. Peter Sellers as the pathetic old general married to a terrible dinosaur of a morbidly sick woman, having nothing but his memories and his fascination of young pretty girls to live for, makes one of his most remarkable performances. Even Dany Robin makes a pathetic character, as she has waited 17 years for Peter and doesn't get him anyway, although he now retires and wants to leave his wife. There are of course some hilarious scenes, but the general pathetic character drowns them in melancholy and makes them indifferent and constructed. Another great asset of the film is Richard Addinsell's music. The waltz adds a romantic touch to all the misery, which will remain as a lasting impression. I never liked Jean Anouilh's plays, there was always some dark bitterness about them, and his adaptation of "Anna Karenina" for the screen kills Tolstoy. I saw this film now for the third time and for the first time all through, since I never could bear with it earlier. Now I found it passable, especially for the direction, the actors and the music, while the fun of it felt more artificially strained than ever.

Surpsingly good,a an early masterpiece starring a not yet so famous Sellers

[AudemarsPiguet · 9/10 · 4 May 2005]

This film haunted me from the first viewing,or at least I was oddly fascinated at its beginning and a little puzzled,slightly bored and confused towards the end,due too the fact that it seemed to me well made however a little uneven,encapsulating,besides beauty and depth a little bit of pathetic,overblown,hilarious,less plausible,corny situations. Now a realize that judging this film as uneven is also,partly,my own fault.The reason may be that I first saw this film in my early teens,when I could relate a little less to the sentimental problems of an aging man.Seeing it for the second time a few weeks ago(and five-six years later than the first viewing)I gradually understood more of the character's inner structure and grasped this film's value and depth much better. Besides Seller's both deep yet humorous performance this film is beautiful for it's nostalgic "fin-de-siecle","Belle-Epoque" mood,the overtly sophisticated elegance of the characters,the costumes,the language,the sets. The storyline,the plot are,in a very balanced,discreet,stylish way divinely decadent.In late nineteenth century-beginning of twentieth century England an elderly officer(Sellers in an unusually mature and witty understated part)is,like Frank Slade from Scent of A Woman years later,oscillating between a suicidal,anguished saturation of life and a huge portion of self indulgent yet healthy and uncensored hedonism/vital-ism in spite of his age. Unlike Frank Slade it is not a physical disability that causes his depression and suicidal tendencies,rather(what partly applies to Frank Slade too)the fear of getting old or,more precisely,of not being capable to enjoy life fully due to aging,besides that an unhappy marriage,a major failure in love,the futility of the all the privileges and luxuries he can easily afford,yet fail to cure him of his doubts. Inspite of contemplating suicide I think that both General Fitzjohn from this film and Colonel Frank Slade are sad,but not irremediably ill-fated creatures.Suicide-though neither one of them is putting it into practice,is in their case,not a cowardly evasion,but a manly way to achieve a moral triumph over a morally flawed world.By the way,neither of them is a failure,o.k. they tend to be selfish,cynical,even too overindulgent,however they both bear an immense and unaltered lust for life,a vivid intellect and sensibility,an intense,even if outer restrained love for life,women and-almost incredible-family. Beneath the womanizing,socially hyperactive,hard-drinking Fitzjohn lies an almost childlike enthusiasm and thirst for life and both Seller's performance(few actors know to mingle childlike and mature behavior,features etc. credibly and brilliantly as he does)and the whole mood exhaling a peaceful,quiet joy of living(remember it's the pastoral Brithish countryside in the aristocratic sense of the word). Another resemblance with Scent of a Woman is the importance of a very particular dance,which,like the famous tango in the film mentioned above,sparks a whole universe of beauty and nostalgia,of memories,of an almost unreal sort of joy and beauty. I always thought that Anouillh is a fossilized,high-minded but old-fashioned playwright,a sort of a too off-beat,pretentious,declamatory,uselessly&unpractical sophisticated geek.This film,a screenplay after a less known creation of him,proved that he is not only talented,but also witty and entertaining in an unceremoniously juicy yet still intelligent and profound way. Probably this film needs more than one viewing to get over its too hilarious,old-fashioned,uneven,artificial bits and discover that it is truly(at least at certain extent)a masterpiece.

Remarks random and relevant

[Brevity · 9 July 2005]

Forgive me again for being very uninformative and nitpicky. I'm unfamiliar with the play ("disastrously translated into English setting and characters" - Halliwell's) and I sure as hell can't discuss the author's oeuvre.

• The photography is beautiful, if not entirely consistently so. I especially liked it during one of the heavier scenes involving Sellers and "wife".

• There are some ugly flashback transitions.

• "Fawlty"-heads will see a pre-Sybil Scales, if paying enough attention...

• ... which can be relatively hard at times.

• One notices how the actor who plays the innkeeper (John Glyn-Jones, further investigation shows) carries an enormous resemblance to the fine actor Richard Jenkins of "Six Feet Under" fame (or of "The Man Who Wasn't There" fame). Then, in his second and final scene, what is called out through some galloping if not "Mr. Jenkins!" Bizarre.

• John Le Mesurier seems to have been always reliable (by which I mean the few of his I've seen).

• Sellers's "old man" voice arouses in me questions as to why he was constantly cast in these senior roles (here, flashbacks, yes). Don't get me wrong, though. His performance is as great as you can expect from him.

• "I'm old enough to be your aunt." Well, you don't look like it.

• The titular sequence is actually memorable.

• The ending I liked, which seems to be a common thing with viewers.

• I have trouble understanding what this eventually is. One minute, there's some silly umbrella fencing, and the next, grave discussion about things marital in nature. I can't really grasp the whole film. That's right, blame my age. But it is all over the place.

• At any rate, the film is worth a go. I didn't get these "masterpiece" vibes that others have gotten out of it, but if not for anything else, it's worth seeing for Sellers doing his thing.

humor mixed in with serious dialogue -- Spoiler

[ksf-2 · 10/10 · 3 September 2009]

Spoilers -- A lot of subtle humor mixed in with the serious dialogue, mostly sight gags, (which would make Sellers famous in the Pink Panthers). The general has a swordfight with the doctor, but the only weapon available to the doc is the umbrella, so he fights with that, and at one point even stops to show the general how to properly thrust & parry; When Leo rushes past a man on a bike, the bike flips upside down, spilling the food on the rider's face. As the general walks past the kitchen help, his hands keep making "involuntary" gestures. Ghislaine (French actress Dany Robin) goes wading, and a fisherman "catches" her dress right off her. Lady Fitzjohn (Margaret Leighton) gets on a bicycle and passes all the riders on horseback, hunched down like Margaret Hamilton in Wiz of Oz... and that car that keeps backfiring. The General never does get to fiddle with Ghislaine , but he sums it up himself by saying "we all have to grow up sometime." I liked it, even if it did get quite serious at the end. Fitzjohn and his wife finally talk about the reality of their relationship after all those years. When he almost kills her, he says "Thank God" when the doc says she will live (although he might just be relieved he won't be tried in an accidental death) I guess the moral is to be happy with your lot in life (his iffy marriage), and to make the most of opportunities that come along (he muffed both chances with Ghislaine). The last 20 minutes feel like a tacked-on ending; this could have easily ended much earlier... maybe where they stop quarreling in the castle, or when Fitzjohn finds out the wife will be OK. i don't usually dig period pieces, but this one held my interest - there was just enough humor and peter sellers to keep me watching.

Prunella Scales is "ugly"? Yeah, right...

[fedor8 · 15 April 2023]

A ridiculous combination of comedy and drama.

The first half is likable, a decent period comedy that verges on sex-romp at times, and even on farce, though fortunately not too much.

Then, suddenly, after about 70 minutes they want us to start taking these silly characters seriously! As if that makes remotely any sense. Sellers and his wife try to pull a Tennessee Williams on us, and it just comes off all wrong, preposterous, not to mention boring. These two, who had been clowning around the previous hour (along with everyone else), suddenly want us to get emotionally involved in their bizarre melodramatic, funny-unfunny-funny-unfunny failed marriage. I was having none of it. There's no credibility in it at all. 60s comedies can't be dramas, period.

In fact, it felt like a prank, as if it was expected of the actors to all jump out of the screen and shout "Fooled ya!" What a strange decision by the writer(s). Or rather, stupid more than strange.

Imagine if after an hour of a "Naked Gun" movie, the ZAZ team suddenly expected us to believe that Lt Frank Drebin was a real person, with real problems - that we're suppose to immerse ourselves into. ZAZ make absurdist comedies, but the comparison isn't a big stretch because this comedy is very 60s i.e. Silly. You don't expect a Bugs Bunny cartoon to get serious, do you?

Fortunately, the drama bits are no longer than 15 minutes altogether, so I can somewhat forgive the film for being so delusionally wishy-washy. Naturally, this can happen when you have three people doing the story and/or screenplay.

The long "serious talk" between Sellers and the wife should have been completely cut out of the movie. Didn't they have test audiences back then? Didn't anyone involved consider inviting a friend from the film industry to a screening before release? Someone needed to tell these people they'd screwed up with the genre jumble. Despite this being very evident.

Not so evident to the users here though. Nobody in the comments section seems to have noticed the absurd genre discrepancy. They take it for granted, like it was normal and logical. You could serve some people a splatter-gore horror ending to "Wizard of Oz" and they wouldn't complain, or notice the absurdity...

Another example is the court hearing, which actually expects us to take it seriously, despite the fact that the hearing is based on a laughable "case" and that the junior officer and the French mistress behaved as such cartoon characters until then. They were literally chasing each other in slapstick fashion - then suddenly we're to accept the "poignancy" of their "love".

To make things dumber, their "love" made no sense to begin with, not even within the context of a comedy. The mistress was literally running away from the officer for the movie's duration, telling him NO on numerous occasions. Yet, suddenly, barely hours later, she picks him over Sellers and even wants to marry him, just so the movie can have its silly court-case and then the plot-twist. (Which insinuates that Sellers's daughters are in love with their own half-brother.)

Some of the comedic situations are too forced, the worst (or best) example being the drunken hunting party fools obstructing Sellers's attempts to join his mistress in her room. This was cringingly unfunny and tiresome. Why? Because comedy never works when it has no basis in reality. Sellers could have EASILY gone to her room, yet he is somehow "prevented" from doing so, which results in their eventual split and her hooking up with the officer. This is known as "desperate use of ridiculous plot-devices". That section was abysmal. Three writers couldn't come up with a viable alternative, a smarter and more convincing way why Sellers's relationship with the mistress fails. "Well, he couldn't get to her room." So dumb.

Probably the funniest bit is Sellers telling his junior officer how ugly his daughters are. It reminded me of Basil Fawlty's immortal line to a nurse: "My God, you're ugly, aren't you..."

Speaking of which, Basil's wife Prunella Scales plays one of the two "ugly" daughters, which is absurd for several reasons... For one thing, she's anything but ugly. Secondly, she was only 7 years younger than Sellers, and 30 years old. Thirdly, the camera never shows them clearly. Still, she's sufficiently tiny to play a teenager. The director enabled this con by avoiding to show us the faces of either of the daughters, which is why I doubt that even 1% of "Fawlty Towers" fans could have recognized her - unless they already knew she's in the movie.

Speaking of this joke, some people complained that they were "offended" by Sellers calling his daughters ugly. Perhaps all comedies should have a warning sticker: "WARNING: this is a comedy, so perhaps not adequate for over-sensitive snowy flakes who take everything literally and very seriously." I swear, some of these "reviewers" ought to be 18th century Protestant priests...