Controlled Chameleon

The Millionairess (Dimitri de Grunwald; 20th Century-Fox) is made from an old show-business recipe for success: when the joke is bad, make the worst of it. The joke, written in this case by George Bernard Shaw, was a 1936 profiteer-jerker that parodied the plight of those who have money and think it will buy anything. In this revival, Director Anthony Asquith makes a parody of the parody, and where the play becomes too talky, he has the good sense to decree that the Shaw must not go on. He also makes the most of Sophia Loren, who consistently puts her breast a foot forward, and of Britain's Peter Sellers, who with this picture makes himself a major international star.

The picture's plot, though much rearranged, is still essentially Shaw. Epifania Ognisanti di Parerga (Loren), heiress to a vast industrial domain, buys a husband, buys a divorce, buys a lover (Dennis Price). She is therefore astounded to discover that money cannot buy her the man she really wants, a humble Hindu medic (Sellers) who informs her mildly that he is "married to science," requires no mistress, and desires only "to be of some benefit to mankind." She offers him her body. He merely observes: "What an entirely perfect trapezius you have." In the end, though, she asks him to take her pulse--that is, to accept her vitality; and this he cannot refuse.

Very few moviegoers will be able to resist Actor Sellers. Not even canny old Alastair Sim, who mugs it up as the heroine's lawyer, can steal a frame from this subtle performer who hardly seems to move his face at all. Comedian Sellers indeed is not a performer, but an actor in the best sense of the word; not a professional show-off who attracts attention to what he is doing, but an artist who reveals what he is. And what Sellers is, solely and invariably, is the character he is portraying. In playing Shaw's exotic sawbones, he employs all manner of visual props: a purple complexion, a sweaty old fur cap, a superb Calcutta accent that sounds as though he had swallowed a noisy fly as he opened his mouth to talk. Nevertheless, the makeup helps to make, not a music-hall figure of fun, but a man--a gentle, warm, naive and wonderfully decent man. Sellers obviously loves him, and so will everybody else.

Two-Way Stretch (Lion International), a rock pile farce from Britain that also features Funnyman Sellers, points up one of the minor hazards of his career: moviegoers who see him in one picture often cannot recognize him in the next. His roles apparently affect his chemistry, but not at random; he is a controlled chameleon.

In Stretch, Sellers plays a "wide boy" (small-time crook) who has a chance to "hoist . . . a coupla million nicker" (steal -L-2,000,000) but unfortunately finds himself "in boob" (in jail). Fortunately, Jailbird Sellers inhabits a gilded cage that contains a radio, a wine cellar, a fully equipped kitchen, a cuckoo clock, an amiable tabby. Milk and papers are delivered every morning by the local tradesmen. The turnkey knocks timidly before entering and walks the cat upon request. Morning massage by a cellmate is followed by classes in basket weaving, fretwork and (when the warden looks the other way) safe blowing.

Under such conditions, Sellers decides, it should not be too difficult to lark out, pick up the packet, and nip back with a perfect alibi before the warden knows he is gone. But just before he can put his plan into effect, the friendly old turnkey is replaced by Sergeant Sidney ("Sour") Crout, who is notoriously "the most wickid screw what ever crep' down a prison corridor." Best scene occurs in a prison quarry, where an "accidental" blast blows Sergeant Crout to comical tatters and leaves him staring at the audience with an expression like the can't-win cat in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Best line belongs to Sellers. "Four years we've been gaoin' together," his girl (Liz Frazer) in forms him indignantly, "an' what've oi got to shaow fer it? Nothin'!" Replies Sellers with a smallish smirk: "You've been lucky."

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