Main Cast: Peter Sellers, Dany Robin, Margaret Leighton, John Fraser, Cyril Cusack
Release Year: 1962
Country: UK
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Fitzjohn (Peter Sellers) is a retired general who is miserable at home with his shrewish wife Emily (Margaret Leighton). He dreams of younger days when he enjoyed the platonic company of the beautiful Ghislaine (Dany Robin). After many years, she shows up at his door and expresses her desire to take their relationship beyond the platonic level. When his plans are temporarily postponed, he leaves her in care of his right hand man. His aid and Ghislaine fall in love, prompting Fitzjohn to begin court-martial proceedings against his unfaithful aide. When the lineage of his aide is discovered, he tries to halt the trial in this ironic comedy taken from the play by Jean Anouilh. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Review
Drawn rather freely from Jean Anouilh's bittersweet comedy, Waltz of the Toreadors does not have the subtlety and density of observation that mark its source material, but on its own terms it is an amusing sex farce with a little more on its mind than an expression of carnal desires. Screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz has re-set the story from post-World War II France to pre-World War I Sussex, perhaps to imbue the film with a more "otherworldly" quality; he has also coarsened a great deal of the dialogues and situations. While this places him at odds with Anoiulh, it seems to dovetail nicely with both director John Guillermin and star Peter Sellers's rather broad take on the material. In Sellers's case, this is all to the good; one of the screen's most adept character comedians, he delights in the opportunities that the screenplay gives him to plot, bumble and foil in the most amusing manner possible. The actor also captures a great deal of the pathos and sorrow in the character's life, and gives a wonderfully convincing performance all around. The film as a whole is rather less successful at reconciling the shifts between high and low comedy, drama and even tragedy, and the thrust of the film eventually becomes muddled. As a result, Waltz stumbles a bit more often than it glides, but overall it's an amusing and interesting little dance. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Harry Pottle - Art Director, Beatrice Dawson - Costume Designer, John Guillermin - Director, Peter Taylor - Editor, Richard Addinsell - Composer (Music Score), Muir Mathieson - Musical Direction/Supervision, Stuart Freeborn - Makeup, W.T. Partleton - Makeup, Wilfred Shingleton - Production Designer, John Wilcox - Cinematographer, Peter de Sarigny - Producer, Wolf Mankowitz - Screenwriter, Jean Anouilh - Play Author
