Peter Sellers-The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu

Peter Sellers said on several occasions that he had no personality of his own between roles. Those who knew him disagreed. In fact, it has been widely reported that Peter Sellers was selfish, egotistical, cruel and perhaps even a bit mentally ill. He has also been referred to as generous, loyal, shy and nostalgic. A favorite of both Prince Charles and Elvis Presley, the one thing most people agree on is that when he was on his game, Peter Sellers was one of the funniest men ever to make a movie.

Born into a family of entertainers in 1925, Richard Henry Sellers (called Peter) would grow up like many of his age to join the RAF in WWII. Forced by bad eyesight to remain grounded, Peter started appearing as a comic and jazz drummer while still in the service. After his discharge, he would continue performing on the stage and on the skins in small clubs throughout England. It was at the beginning of the fifties, though, when Sellers shot to sudden fame alongside Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe on BBC radio's weekly broadcasts of THE GOON SHOW.

At first listen, any given episode of THE GOON SHOW seems an incoherent mess. Every single moment is chock full of silly voices, odd gags, bizarre sound effects and inappropriately banal musical interludes. Every episode is also laugh out loud funny in a kind of avant garde way that would set the tone for the later popularity of the BEYOND THE FRINGE gang, the humor of the Beatles and even MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. For the series, Peter created such memorable characters as Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Bluebottle (who always read his own stage directions), the aged Henry Crun and the flatulent Major Bloodnok. The format of the series being what it was, these roles would often be different in everything but name, voice and general character from episode to episode.

More handsome than the portly Secombe or the rumpled looking Milligan, Peter Sellers heeded the call of the big screen early on. Throughout the 1950's he appeared in a number of memorable but widely varying character roles in British motion picture comedies such as I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK, TWO-WAY STRETCH and THE LADYKILLERS. The latter is important in the Sellers canon as the picture starred Alec Guinness, upon whose early film career one could easily say Sellers would base his tendency to play multiple roles in a single picture. Guinness also loved to appear made up and Sellers would do so often himself.

After years of continued radio success, some comedy records (recorded with a pre-Beatles George Martin) and a steady screen career, Sellers slowly began attracting international attention in such major productions as THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (in which he played multiple roles a la Guinness), George Pal's TOM THUMB, THE MILLIONAIRESS with Sophia Loren and the UK filmed final "Road" picture with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, THE ROAD TO HONG KONG. By the time of his casting as Clare Quilty in Stanley Kubrick's controversial adaptation of Nabokov's LOLITA, Peter Sellers was himself an actual movie star.

After completing two more small, home grown films. THE WRONG ARM OF THE LAW and HEAVEN'S ABOVE, Peter Sellers went Hollywood. Recreating himself as a playboy, he played the part to the hilt for many years through drugs, alcohol, several marriages and a number of high profile romances. Onscreen, he next appeared in the two most important films of his early career--Blake Edwards' THE PINK PANTHER and Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB.

1963's THE PINK PANTHER tells the story of the eponymous diamond and the jewel thief who's out to steal it. Ostensibly a comedy caper vehicle for old-timer David Niven, Sellers' French police inspector, Jacques Clouseau effortlessly steals every scene he's in. In the blacker than black 1964 nuclear satire DR. STRANGELOVE, he spreads his acting wings in three roles. Sellers appears as the hapless US President, a British military officer on loan to the US and most memorably as the wheelchair-bound title character--a perhaps insane ex-Nazi Presidential advisor. Peter Sellers was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the film.

While Peter next starred in the delightful THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT, Blake Edwards retooled a stage play he was preparing to film to make it into a vehicle for the return of Inspector Clouseau. Thus was born A SHOT IN THE DARK, many people's favorite performance by Sellers as his signature character.

A heart attack scare around this time slowed his career a bit and smaller roles in big budget, all-star failures such as Woody Allen's WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? and the legendarily bad James Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE (also with Woody) didn't help either. In the classic tradition of film comics from George Formby to Danny Kaye, Peter began appearing in a string of starring vehicles that featured his talents to the delight of his many fans if not the critics. These pictures included THE PARTY, THE BOBO (co-starring his young soon to be ex-wife, Britt Ekland), I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS and the self-financed mess that was THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN.

As incoherent as any episode of THE GOON SHOW ever had been (and even featuring a scene with fellow Goon Spike Milligan), THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN offered up Sellers along with Ringo Starr, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Yul Brynner and a dozen other familiar faces along with a classic theme song (Badfinger's "Come and Get It") but the excesses of the swingin' sixties were quite obvious and not in a good way.

In the early seventies and without a bona fide hit for some time, Sellers slowed down a bit and began taking unusual character parts in smaller films. He also appeared triumphantly onstage with his old GOON SHOW colleagues for THE LAST GOON SHOW OF ALL. The original GOON SHOW broadcasts, in fact, were being syndicated throughout America. Peter's low point may have been 1974's UNDERCOVERS HERO (aka SOFT BEDS, HARD BATTLES) a dreadfully unfunny World War II "comedy" in which he once again portrayed multiple roles--this time six including Adolf Hitler.

Someone else who had been without a real film success for some time was Blake Edwards. The two put their volatile relationship behind them and decided to reteam for THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER in 1975. With Christopher Plummer taking over the David Niven role from the original, this time the sequel emphasized Inspector Clouseau and the picture's resounding international success put both men back on top in Hollywood! Two more follow-ups were made over the next three years and both were huge financial successes. Along the way, Peter also appeared memorably as a politically incorrect Charlie Chan type Oriental detective in Neil Simon's all-star success, MURDER BY DEATH. That film also featured Alec Guinness.

In 1977, Peter Sellers had more issues with his heart and had to have a pacemaker installed. Other than that, though, Peter felt like he was back on top. Unfortunately this meant a return to some of his old habits. One of these was that he married another young actress, Lynne Frederick, and another was choosing poor vehicles, in this case, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, a tired remake of the Ronald Colman swashbuckling classic with Peter once again in dual roles. Frederick had been his co-star in the picture.

His next choice for a vehicle, though, was truly inspired. Since the early seventies, Peter Sellers had been enamored of author Jerzy Kosinski's book, BEING THERE. Finally, after nearly a decade, Kosinski agreed to allow a film version with Peter and to write the screenplay. It was, to say the least, an unusual role for the chameleon Sellers. BEING THERE tells the story of Chance, an old, simple man who has spent his entire life being taken care of by others only to be suddenly thrust out into the real world. Rather than being totally lost, his simple wisdom is misunderstood, misinterpreted, acted on and praised by powerful men up to and including the President of the United States, for whom he becomes an advisor. Shirley Maclaine and veteran Melvyn Douglas co-star. BEING THERE was touted by critics and fans worldwide in 1979 as Sellers' best work and one of the greatest motion pictures of the decade. Douglas won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Peter was thought to be a shoe-in for the Best Actor statue. In a controversial and devastating moment for the actor, Peter Sellers lost to Dustin Hoffman (for an enjoyable but hardly comparable performance in KRAMER VS KRAMER). In spite of that, he had made what was clear to all as his best film and his best performance ever. Then he decided to make THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU.

Usually one can trace the slow decline in an actor's career leading up to a terrible final film. With Peter Sellers it was more like a lightning-fast plummet. Now granted that BEING THERE would be virtually impossible to follow under the best of circumstances but Peter's health was in decline, his sanity sometimes in question and his timing very, very off. Sax Rohmer's evil Oriental mastermind personified the "yellow peril"of an earlier era and had last been played onscreen by Christopher Lee in a series of painful to watch potboilers that had ended a decade earlier. An attempt at re-issuing the original books in the US in the early 1970's had met with little success. Marvel comics was only able to win with its long-running comic book adaptation by emphasizing the character's newly created heroic son Shang-Chi in a role that combined Bruce Lee action with TV's KUNG FU-style philosophy. In time, the strip would barely reference its original source material. In all cases, the problem was that the inherent racism in Fu Manchu had just become no longer acceptable except perhaps in context of its time.

THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU went through a horrible backstage gestation which ultimately led to Sellers firing director Piers Haggard and taking the reins himself. Unfortunately, this lack of a single vision shows all around and the picture becomes at times a straightforward homage to the original novels and at others a very lame and unfunny spoof of same.

Sellers completed the shooting under very stressful work and personal circumstances. Then he was ready to move on quickly to other things. In fact, after a few years away from the role, he had an ace in the hole. He had been writing another Clouseau film, this one entitled THE ROMANCE OF THE PINK PANTHER and to be made without the participation of Blake Edwards who had gone on to several hits without Sellers. Peter was also tied to varying extents to other projects including a remake of UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (eventually done by Dudley Moore). While preparing to do all of those, he shot some bank commercials for television. He was scheduled to have a dinner reunion with Milligan and Secombe when his heart attacked him yet again and he died.

It was nearly two months later when THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU opened. The studio marketing department went out of its way to tie the comedy to the popular PINK PANTHER franchise, going so far as to ape the traditional newspaper ad campaign that featured multiple cartoon ads for the picture. Nothing helped--not even the macabre interest in seeing Sellers one last time onscreen. The critics and public alike ignored and/or reviled the film. It would also be the final film of David Tomlinson who chose to retire after a long and distinguished acting legacy.

In the picture, Peter Sellers yet again portrays two roles. Here, he is Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, the now retired Scotland Yard Inspector who has fought and been captured by the cruel and vicious Chinese doctor over and over to the point where torture has somewhat warped his brain. Nonetheless, he is the expert called on by American FBI agents (the great Sid Caesar wasted here and US TV actor Steve Franken) and the Yard's Tomlinson (of MARY POPPINS and LOVE BUG fame) when the 168 year old Fu (called Fred--a GOON SHOW reference) begins a new reign of terror.

The ostensible "fiendish plot" involves the need to steal the ingredients of the elixir that keeps the villain alive after the last few ounces are used to put out a fire accidentally started in a clever early sequence by Burt Kwouk (Cato in the PINK PANTHER films).

Along the way, the heroes team up with an undercover female agent played by the lovely Helen Mirren (PRIME SUSPECT, THE QUEEN) in what is one of the most thankless roles of her amazing career. For no apparent reason other than perhaps Sellers' ego, Mirren's character is easily seduced by the aged Fu Manchu and switches sides for the remainder of the film. This includes several music hall bits and a long and silly sequence of an outdoor barbecue to which the villains try to lure a victim.

Sellers plays Smith as a weary but obviously more astute version of Clouseau. While the character would seem to intended to be the heart of the film, he is instead ignored for long periods of time. The Fu Manchu role offers some chances for scenery chewing but the Oriental cliches and the slant-eyed makeup make it hard to enjoy, especially for modern audiences.

Had they played it straight as in some sequences, the whole thing might have worked on a kind of camp level a la TV's BATMAN but instead, silliness and incomprehensiveness abound. The ending in which Fu Manchu talks to Nayland Smith of their long-running battles and how they're necessary opposites seems to be headed in an interesting direction but then it's simply dropped in favor of the rejuvented megalomaniac's Elvis Presley impersonation!

In a bizarre coda to the up and down career of Peter Sellers, there was one last film in which he recieved top billing. 1982's THE TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER saw Blake Edwards ghoulishly editing together old footage and even outtakes of Sellers from earlier Clouseau outings and padding it with a storyline of a reporter (Joanna Lumley) interviewing friends, enemies and co-workers of the missing Inspector (including Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk and David Niven whose voice had to be redubbed by Rich Little) in an attempt to find him. Yet another follow-up, THE CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER ended with Clouseau having had plastic surgery to become...Roger Moore?

More than two decades later, Steve Martin, a comic whose work Peter Sellers had reportedly praised, would revive the PINK PANTHER films for a new generation. They weren't bad but the critics all seemed to say that the one thing that they were sorely missing was Peter Sellers.

Peter Sellers reputation has grown in the years since his death with THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU rarely revived on television or mentioned when one thinks of the actor. The average fan remembers the great British comedies, the classic Hollywood years, THE GOON SHOW and most of all, Clouseau. There have been at least a half dozen biographies of this man with no personality of his own. In 2004, in perhaps the ultimate ironic tribute, actor Geoffrey Rush gave an award winning performance in the title role of THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS, a hard-hitting deconstruction of the myths and legends that still surround this complex and continually fascinating performer.