(Based on a play) Mister Topaze is a poor but honest schoolteacher with an avaricious boss (Leo McKern) and chased by his boss' daughter (a very funny Billie Whitelaw).
When he loses his job after not changing the grades of a student from a good family Topaze is taken in by a couple of crooks (Herbert Lom, Nadia Gray) who use the honest teacher as a front man for their underhanded schemes.
After that the teacher goes on a learning curve.
This is Sellers' sole directoral effort and that's too bad because he has a good eye for framing the wide screen, especially out in Paris and its environs. Sellers is surrounded by talent (including also Michael Gough and John Neville) and he's happy to take on the quiet role anchoring the movie and leave the flamboyance to others (especially Lom, Whitelaw and McKern).
Unfortunately, the role of Topaze is an actor-killer. The same play was filmed before with the great John Barrymore and he was surprisingly dull. I can't imagine employing that word for Barrymore, nor for Sellers. Yet it is true.
The thing about Sellers is his amazing ability to be quiet. Watch the first two Clouseau movies or "Being There." Sellers' being both fascinating and hilarious in stillness is a revelation.
Sellers is also, arguably (or I'd say not so arguably), the best slapstick artist since the Silent era. His subtle strengths (and, yes, his slapstick could be amazingly subtle), especially in the early 1960s, were wonderful. But he gives himself little to do in that direction. He might have thought it a betrayal of the character, but making Topaze a trifle clumsy in the patented Sellers way, working his special magic with inanimate objects so the simplest thing is menacing, would have been a boon to the character, making him at least a tiny bit interesting.
"Mister Topaze" fails in two areas. First, the lead character is simply uninvolving, even with Sellers playing the part. Second, the ending, while realistic, is too bleak.
Sellers always pretended there was no he. Actually, if only half the stories about him are true, he probably feared introspection. Mister Topaze (the character) is possibly a reflection of the way he visualized himself: a man who is invisible if he's not playing a part.
Or is that over-analyzing a movie I find well-directed with a superb cast but which I thought dull? Am I trying to justify finding Peter Sellers (Peter Sellers!) uninvolving?
This movie is a must for Sellers buffs, but that's as much as I can say for it.
I liked the song "I Like Money." And I liked Sellers' direction. But if I find the movie sad it's more because it's such a beautiful failure.
