Les femmes du général

General Leo Saint-Pé and his 'mad' wife Amelie had first appeared in 1948 in 'Ardele' of Jean Anouilh. These two characters resurfaced four years later in 'Waltz of the Toreadors' by the same playwright. The first of these, in common with most of Anouilh's plays, is rarely performed nowadays. The second however has enjoyed many revivals and the role of the General has proved irresistible to such luminaries as Eli Wallach, Hugh Griffiths, Melvyn Douglas, Trevor Howard and Sir Ralph Richardson.

In this 'loose'(to put it mildly) adaptation by Wolf Mankowitz we have Peter Sellers. Therein lies the problem.

He has given us not so much a character as a caricature and whether by intention or not, an extension of Major Bloodnok from 'The Goon Show'.

The film's poster declares this to be 'a rollicking comedy' in which 'Peter Sellers strikes again' and has Sellers, resembling someone from an Ealing comedy, pinching a maid's bottom!

Critics from the first have been quick to point out the contrast in Anouilh's play between comedy and pathos, farce and cruelty.

Director John Guillermin resented that some of the comedy scenes from his film were cut. Judging by the ones left in the exclusion of the others would seem to be a blessing.

It is indeed the cruelty that is most apparent here. The cruelty of Life with its resentments, regrets, lost illusions, dashed hopes and the inexorable passing of Time.

The tragedy mainly belongs to the General's wife, played to perfection by the superlative Margaret Leighton. As the 'maiden' who after seventeen years is still determined to consummate her love for the General (if you can believe that you can believe anything!) we have the divine and delectable Dany Robin. Her Gallic style and intoxicating French accent are alas totally at variance with the other 'anglicised' characters and the Sussex setting. As the local doctor Cyril Cusack as always quietly steals all of his scenes.

The original play was styled by Anouilh as one of his 'grating black comedies'.

What a pity that the makers of this film, with an obvious view to the 'box-office', have lacked the courage to realise his concept. A pity also that this play has never been filmed in France by a top notch director. Watching this raises the question once again as to whether Sellers was a good actor or just a brilliant mimic. For this viewer at any rate, the jury is still out.

This is one of the most arguable comedies ever made, because of its very difficult character. Is it really funny at all? Isn't it just terribly silly? The main character of it is pathetic, as Peter Sellers and Margaret Leighton as his wife both are extremely pathetic, but one thing cannot be denied here: the acting is exceptionally outstanding. Peter Sellers as the pathetic old general married to a terrible dinosaur of a morbidly sick woman, having nothing but his memories and his fascination of young pretty girls to live for, makes one of his most remarkable performances. Even Dany Robin makes a pathetic character, as she has waited 17 years for Peter and doesn't get him anyway, although he now retires and wants to leave his wife. There are of course some hilarious scenes, but the general pathetic character drowns them in melancholy and makes them indifferent and constructed. Another great asset of the film is Richard Addinsell's music. The waltz adds a romantic touch to all the misery, which will remain as a lasting impression. I never liked Jean Anouilh's plays, there was always some dark bitterness about them, and his adaptation of "Anna Karenina" for the screen kills Tolstoy. I saw this film now for the third time and for the first time all through, since I never could bear with it earlier. Now I found it passable, especially for the direction, the actors and the music, while the fun of it felt more artificially strained than ever.

Forgive me again for being very uninformative and nitpicky. I'm unfamiliar with the play ("disastrously translated into English setting and characters" - Halliwell's) and I sure as hell can't discuss the author's oeuvre.

• The photography is beautiful, if not entirely consistently so. I especially liked it during one of the heavier scenes involving Sellers and "wife".

• There are some ugly flashback transitions.

• "Fawlty"-heads will see a pre-Sybil Scales, if paying enough attention...

• ... which can be relatively hard at times.

• One notices how the actor who plays the innkeeper (John Glyn-Jones, further investigation shows) carries an enormous resemblance to the fine actor Richard Jenkins of "Six Feet Under" fame (or of "The Man Who Wasn't There" fame). Then, in his second and final scene, what is called out through some galloping if not "Mr. Jenkins!" Bizarre.

• John Le Mesurier seems to have been always reliable (by which I mean the few of his I've seen).

• Sellers's "old man" voice arouses in me questions as to why he was constantly cast in these senior roles (here, flashbacks, yes). Don't get me wrong, though. His performance is as great as you can expect from him.

• "I'm old enough to be your aunt." Well, you don't look like it.

• The titular sequence is actually memorable.

• The ending I liked, which seems to be a common thing with viewers.

• I have trouble understanding what this eventually is. One minute, there's some silly umbrella fencing, and the next, grave discussion about things marital in nature. I can't really grasp the whole film. That's right, blame my age. But it is all over the place.

• At any rate, the film is worth a go. I didn't get these "masterpiece" vibes that others have gotten out of it, but if not for anything else, it's worth seeing for Sellers doing his thing.

I saw this on cable recently, out of curiosity more than anything else, and I wasn't sure I was really going to watch it. However, it turned out to be quite a little gem that I would recommend for those of us who have a few years on them. Peter Sellers, who was only in his 30s at the time, puts on aging makeup and plays a retired general around the turn of the 19th century who is still chasing skirts (Sellers appears in flashbacks looking his real age). It is a bittersweet look at marriage, sexual desire, maturity, the advantage men have over women with respect to aging, etc. And, to its credit, it doesn't have the stock Hollywood ending one might expect.

This is a wonderful little movie which displays Peter Sellers's acting genius both for comedy and serious drama. It is a haunting story of a general at the end of his career, about how much was real and not real in his life, and about his weaknesses and distractions. It is easy to project certain kinds of political observations on to this movie, as was done in an earlier review by wjfickling in his comment about the advantages that men have over women, but it is just as easy to project the opposite. The genius of the movie is that it tells a story of the bitter sweetness of a man's life that is outside the politcally correct "truth du jour" and can be taken directly, as it is.