Verdict
Summary
Filmmaking ain’t for the weak-willed or fragile hearted, and director Peter Medak shows here that he really has been dealing with guilt and trauma from making Ghost in the Noonday Sun with Peter Sellers.
Plot:
Director Peter Medak revisits the train wreck 1973 production of his film Ghost in the Noonday Sun, starring a very problematic Peter Sellers.
Review:
Director Peter Medak, having come off a very successful film in 1972 called The Ruling Class, which really put him on the map as a filmmaker in England, and he had his choice of projects to undertake next. His friend Peter Sellers, who was considered a comedic genius, suggested that they do a project together, an epic-scale pirate film called Ghost in the Noonday Sun, based on a book. With a green light and a can’t-lose team, Medak and Sellers, along with a huge crew, flew to Cyprus in the Mediterranean and began filming out at sea on a huge pirate ship and after a single day of shooting (which Medak called a “dream come true”), the filming became catastrophic with Sellers becoming increasingly erratic and uncomplimentary to the crew, forcing Medak to fire the cinematographer, and getting worse by the minute. At one point, Sellers faked a massive heart attack and left by emergency services and because he really had a heart condition, everyone thought the film was going to be cancelled, but the next day Sellers was photographed with a princess in the tabloids, which proved that he was simply trying to get out of working on the film, putting the film – and everyone working on it – at risk. With a collapsing and disintegrating production, which all fell on Medak’s shoulders, Sellers was more or less directly responsible for the film’s troubles, and to top it all off the script they’d written was simply not funny. By miracle and sheer force of will, Medak was able to complete the film, but when it was delivered to the studio (Columbia), the film was basically dumped and forgotten about for years, nearly ruining Medak’s career (but it didn’t – he went on to make many more films).
The Ghost of Peter Sellers is a really candid support-group type of experience where Medak gathers people who knew him at the time of the making of the film, including agents, colleagues, and collaborators and they all dredge up and rehash the terrible and traumatic time he had making the movie. It shows how fickle and petty (and frankly horrible) Sellers was, and his behavior really destroyed his friendship with Medak, as well as gave the film’s reputation a big nasty stink. It’s similar in some ways to Terry Gilliam’s experience of making The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which had a documentary of its own called Lost in La Mancha about the disasters Gilliam faced when making the film. There’s also, of course, Lost Soul, the documentary about the making of Richard Stanley’s ill-fated The Island of Dr. Moreau. Filmmaking ain’t for the weak-willed or fragile-hearted, and Medak shows here that he really has been dealing with guilt and trauma from making Ghost in the Noonday Sun with Sellers.
Severin has just released a Blu-ray edition of The Ghost of Peter Sellers, and it comes with an audio interview with Medak, Medak’s production albums from his time making the film, and a video essay, as well as a trailer.
