67 Days Of Nightmare

                                    

I went to see a film yesterday, a documentary. It was totally absorbing. And very funny.

It all came about by a patient mentioning this film and that it was being screened at the Glasgow Film Festival. Her husband is a British Cypriot and a friend back in Cyprus had been harbouring some idea about investigating a film that was made there back in the seventies, and the rumour was the film never got any further. The project to investigate the film that never was  grew arms and legs,  got funding, lost funding and in the end, the makers of the ‘maybe documentary about the film that never was’  launched a crowd funding appeal and  the Scottish Cypriot community responded as did many others.

                                

So we have a man in Cyprus called Paul Iacovou who tracked down the director of the film, one Peter Medak, in Los Angeles. Paul sent an email, one paragraph, asking Peter if he was the man who had directed this film,  and whatever happened to it? Did it ever get finished? Medak responded with ‘here’s my phone number, call me’. It was five in the morning LA time and the call lasted 4 hours.

And Medak was keen to relive his 67 days of nightmare.

And so the documentary was made ‘The Ghost Of Peter Sellers’ about the making of the film, ‘The Ghost of the Noon Day Sun.’

                                  

Medak was at a high in his creative career in the early seventies but he needed the money. Sellers was also at the height of his career  but had separated from Lisa Minelli the day before he flew out to Cyprus to start shooting, so he was depressed and distressed before he even arrived. John Heywood ( whose son raised the finance for the  Harry Potter films ) had secured finance for Ghost, so filming started because the money was there- not because the script was ready and they all agree now,  40/50 years later, that not waiting for the script to be polished a big mistake.

One big mistake but many more followed.

It seemed to be a ball of disaster that they kept kicking rather than picking it up and taking it off the park.

                                      

The film was based on a kiddie’s book, about daft pirates losing treasure. Spike Milligan was doing the changes on the initial script.

The producers had bought an old boat that was turned into the pirate ship. They put in engines that were two small, too old and broke down every five minutes. And stank of diesel. The bay was calm, but once round the headland the sea had…err… waves and most of the crew got seasick. On day one, the drunk Greek captain rammed the boat into the pier, and it nearly sank. It might have been better if they had seen that as an omen.

Sellers, Medak  and Milligan were very close friends. The friendship survived …. But only just and even then, rekindled a few weeks before Sellers died.

                                      

“My career was nearly completely destroyed by this movie. It's so upsetting even today,” said Medak, and indeed he cried many times in the documentary, and again in the live discussion after the film.

Arriving at his villa, the first thing Sellers did was ask for the two main producers  to be sacked. 

During shooting, when he could be bothered turning up, he faked a heart attack, was airlifted out then appeared in the gossip columns two days later stepping out with Princess Margaret when he was supposed to be in intensive care. On his return he wanted a vote of no confidence in the director ( his friend!), then he annoyed his co-star Tony Franciosa so much that the latter brought a sword down a little too far, too close during a fight scene… so Sellers refused to appear in any more scenes with him again. Then Sellers disappeared for hours, days, am entire fortnight. The stories go on….and on….

(But see the film if you can. It shows how nice crime writers are!)

They stuck it out to the bitter end.

Nobody turned up to the wrap party.

                                      

Medak seems to believe that his career never recovered. I don’t know enough about the film world to comment, but it has really affected him. He still cries at the hurt, the uselessness of it all.

I have to confess I think Spike Milligan is a genius.  He was a genuine dude. Medak says that Spike was mad but good, Peter Sellers was mad but bad.

Words like ‘undiagnosed’ and ‘mental illness’ were being bandied around in the audience with reference to Sellers behaviour.

And the word genius.

Not to me he’s not. He acted as he was directed and spoke words written by the guy with the talent. His antics on and off the screen made you wonder why his mother didn’t have a wee word with him in a cupboard. At the end of the day, he was a professional being paid to do a job and he was determined to sabotage it.

Sellers did say that he himself did not exist and ‘Peter Sellers’ only existed through the parts he played. Maybe the fact that he was christened Richard, but called Peter by his parents after their still born first child, might have something to do with that. He remained an only child, and was very close to his mother, a relationship that Spike called ‘unhealthy’ for a man of that age.

Googling the wit of Peter Sellers doesn’t bring up much. Googling the wit of Spike Milligan and you’ll be falling about laughing and you won’t get any writing done, although your laughter may be that of what Peter Medak calls ‘a very British type of humour.’

Spikey at his best, trying not to laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEZ-NvSKJLI

Caro Ramsay