A Brief Rant Concerning Peter Sellers

Watching Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove made my cheeks hurt because I was smiling so much. I partially felt bad about it because, though this is obviously a satire and thus is meant to be laughed at, I probably shouldn't have been beaming so much when Dr. Strangelove was basically describing the end of the world as we know it. But I really couldn't help it; Peter Sellers is by far one of my favorite performers. (If you're wondering why he's missing from my favorite actors post, it's because I focused on primarily dramatic actors.) This is my third time watching the movie, and I'm happy to say it gets better every time I watch it, due mostly to his performance. The fact that much of his lines were improvised only ups my appreciation for him.

The reason I'm writing this, other than wanting to up my post count, obviously, is because it's recently come to my attention that the vast majority of my friends have no idea who the hell Peter Sellers is.(I won't even broach the topic of David Niven with them, because I'm afraid I'll have an aneyurism.)I'm truly baffled as to how this is possible: not only is he the original Pink Panther, but for the love of god there's a movie NAMED after the man. There isn't a single actor I can think of working today who can even come close to his special combination of versatility, creativity, physical comedy and deadpan wit. It would take at least four modern actors to even come close to matching his talents, in my ever so biased opinion.So it made me very sad to hear that, apparently, not many people our age have seen anything of his. I hope everyone enjoyed his performance(s) as much as I always do.

That's it for now. There's clearly a lot more to this movie than just Peter Sellers, but if we're going to be discussing it tomorrow I don't really want to post an entire essay prematurely.

Oh, also, I'd hate to post another youtube video, but this needs to be seen: