Sexy goings-on behind Library doors - well on-screen at least!
Shh! Shh! Whisper it gently - but libraries in Wales have never seemed the same since the incomparable (and often infuriating) Peter Sellers rampaged through the deliciously steamy movie Only Two Can Play.Back in 1962 Sellers, as a lustful, accident-prone, married lecher, shattered the image of librarians as boring bookworms, in the first British X-cert comedy - a film drawn from Kingsley Amis' novel That Uncertain Feeling.
Now The National Library of Wales is shedding its own inhibitions to screen this vintage feature at its' own venue - the Drwm. The film is to be screened twice, the first showing on the evening of the 16th of September and a matinee performance the following afternoon. What better time to revive the film in Wales than 2004 when a controversial biopic of the star has premiered at Cannes (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) and a retrospective of the actor's work is being screened in the up and coming Cardiff Film Festival?
In Only Two Can Play Sellers is hilarious as the lustful but often hapless John Lewis, palpitating and salivating in pursuit of sexy Swedish actress Mai Zetterling as a corrupt wife of an influential local councillor.
Both Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, producers of Only Two Can Play, have spoken in recent years of the great actor/comedian's ceaseless quest for perfection, often leading him to constantly re-do scenes. Sellers even tried to fire Virginia Maskell, the young actress playing his wife. Sellers was apparently unconvinced that she could manage a credible Welsh accent and asked for her dismissal - though it was suspected that his ulterior motive was part of a campaign to replace Maskell with Welsh born actress Siân Phillips. The tactic was sheer effrontery. Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith, priceless as a henpecked librarian in the movie, has revealed how Sellers himself agonised constantly and sought repeated reassurance that his own Welsh accent passed muster.
The film's production was never smooth sailing and author Amis accused the scriptwriters of dumbing down key scenes. Amis hit out at the "contrived Welshness" of the film and claimed "Welsh eccentrics were crawling all over the thing." Yet, despite any problems, the film proved a success, grossing £500,000 in Britain alone - a creditable sum by the standards of the time.
The movie is also peppered with superb cameo performances notably from Richard Attenborough as a pompous poet constantly deflated by Sellers' gibes, Meredith Edwards as a humourless minister on the library appointments committee, and John Le Mesurier of Dad's Army fame.
Notes:
Only Two Can Play
- Thursday 16th September - 7.30pm. Tickets £5.
- Friday Matinee 17th September - 2.00pm. Tickets £3.50.
- Box Office: 01970 632548