Peter Sellers' true swan song

“You’re always gonna be a little boy, ain’t you?

There’s a scene in Blake Edwards’ The Party where Claudine Longet is performing the song, “Nothing to Lose”, on her guitar. All the guests of the party are watching and Peter Sellers, busting to go to the toilet, stumbles in to the parlor and is immediately delighted and taken hold of her song. He completely forgets why he even stormed in to the room in the first place and can’t help but shyly sink himself in to a corner as he watches Claudine play, completely starstruck.

What I’m trying to say here is Peter Sellers does not get enough credit for being an incredibly moving actor, especially in the context of his physical comedy, in the same manner as Charlie Chaplin or Jacques Tati, who can move me to tears just from how wholesome and sweet they can be. No matter how much people try to get that film cancelled today, Peter Sellers sincerely delivers one of the sweetest and most loveable performances I’ve ever seen in The Party, which is anything but mean-spirited or maliciously stereotypical. I think the most important thing that these three physical comedy actors do above all for me is they make me smile. And I think that’s a more profound and powerful emotion than all the laughs in the world combined.

Being There thrusts Peter Sellers in to a way of life and setting that breaks my heart to see him in. We always ask ourselves, “why can’t we have nice things? Why can’t people be kinder to one another?”, well, we’re the reason why. The world has always shun, and will continue to shun, the naive innocence of a good heart. And when the world isn’t trying to shun them, they’re taken advantage of for personal gain. No other face in cinematic history could have better sold the humbleness and child-like curiosity of this characters perception of the world and their surroundings better than Peter Sellers. Even though it wasn’t his final film before he passed away a year later, this is his true swan song. The complete culmination of an entire career wrapped in to one film.