Only Two Can Play

Peter Sellers won great acclaim for his performance in this movie, but was difficult to work with throughout the filming. He repeatedly asked Director Sidney Gilliat to replace Virginia Maskell, who played his wife, and, when Gilliat refused, he became convinced that this movie would be a disaster, said so publicly, and sold his percentage of the profits back to Launder and Gilliat. It proved to be a big commercial and critical hit (with Maskell winning excellent reviews), and so he lost out on a lot of money. Perhaps because of this, he continued to bad-mouth the movie for the rest of his life.

At the start John is holding a book, and one gets a glimpse of the title: "Sex, Sin and Sanctity" but when the camera looks at the title it has changed to "Is Sex Necessary?"

Opening credits prologue: "IT IS NOT OBSERVED THAT LIBRARIANS ARE WISER MEN THAN OTHERS" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Featured in The Unknown Peter Sellers (2000)