Peter Sellers reportedly tried to usurp the functions of the director on some of his films, especially toward the end of his career (in the recent documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers, Peter Medak reminiscences ruefully about the star’s efforts to undermine him on the 1973 shoot of The Ghost in the Noonday Sun), but this 1961 adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s 1928 play (previously filmed many times, including in 1936 and 1951 by Pagnol himself and in 1933 with John Barrymore) was the only time he was actually credited as such. Sellers also stars as the title character, an obsessively honest but rather dim French provincial schoolteacher who, after being canned, is used as a patsy by a crooked politician to hide his money-laundering schemes behind a hapless front-man.
The film, retitled I Like Money for release in the United States after a song sung by co-star Nadia Gray in a nightclub scene, was a resounding flop, and virtually all prints disappeared—one rumor was that Sellers had them rounded up and destroyed. Nevertheless, he kept one in his private collection, which passed to the National Archive of the British Film Institute upon the actor’s death in 1980, joined there by two additional copies. These were the basis of the digital restoration on the present disc.
Though the colors still look paler than they would originally have been, the widescreen images have a creamy glow, and the film emerges as a pleasant, fairly low-key, bit of cynicism about a man who turns the tables on those who use him for their nefarious purposes by becoming even more unscrupulous than they are and taking over their illegal businesses for himself. Though the sedate pacing is a problem, what probably doomed the film for audiences at its initial appearance was Sellers’ extremely subdued performance, which, though it can be appreciated for its subtlety today, must have disappointed those expecting something more raucous and slapstick from him.
While reining himself in, however, Sellers elicited broad comic turns from his stellar supporting players—Herbert Lom (his later co-star in the Pink Panther series) as the greedy politico and Gray as his chanteuse mistress; Michael Gough as a fellow teacher; John Neville and John Le Mesurier as elegant crooks; and especially Leo McKern as Topaze’s overbearing headmaster, Billie Whitelaw as his daughter, and Martita Hunt as the haughty baroness who has Topaze fired for refusing to change her grandson’s grades.
While no hidden masterpiece, Sellers’ sole directorial effort deserves reassessment, and this release provides an opportunity for it. Extras include a trailer; a 1951 short film, Let’s Go Crazy, a nightclub-based revue featuring Sellers in a variety of roles (33 min.); a featurette titled The Poetry of Realism, in which critic Kat Ellinger discusses the career of Pagnol (13 min.); and a wide-ranging interview with Abigail McKern about her father (20 min.). A strong optional purchase, especially for Sellers completists.