Bea Swanson
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Zandra
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
David Traversa
This movie is so dated that to watch it nowadays gives you the feeling of watching an early movie, "A Trip to the Moon" --1902-- for example.But "A Trip to the Moon" can be accepted if we place our mind at that time, with that technology, etc. as a museum piece, a curiosity. Not this movie though, where from the initial 1950s title the whole thing is redolent of naphthalene, and that feeling goes on with a sudden close up of Peter Seller (as funny as yesterday morning flat and cold soufflé) and it goes on in a very Kingsley Amis (the author of this book) way, a way as old fashioned as the treatment for this movie.What a turkey! Peter Sellers is totally miscast for this rol, because if we consider that the character, according to the females reaction when seeing him, was an instant turn on, he, obviously, doesn't fit the rol by a long shot (a Sean Connery was needed here).He was SO blah! and the women that were supposed to be bombshells, were totally ruined with that 1950s look --exagerated (ridiculous) pointed bust, waists cinched to death and beehive hairdos-- the only exception being Virginia Maskell (Sellers wife in the movie) a lovely, natural beauty, fortunately without all that paraphernalia that was the last cry for the fashion of that time. Everything is old fashion in this movie, the situations (many of them pathetic), the pacing, the editing, the camera work, the acting. Some comments mentioned "the humor"... I'm flabbergasted... was there humor in this movie? I totally missed it. I don't get it, English movies are usually exceptionally good, but this one in particular is impossibly bad, as bad as Mr. Amis literature.
edwagreen
This is essentially the story of a bored librarian, Peter Sellers, really in the throws of the 7 year itch. In walks in the wife of an important person on the library commission. She can get him a promotion providing that he fully cooperates in a love affair. Peter Sellers gives an interesting performance in both a comical and semi-dramatic way. Mai Zetterling is the shrew of a woman.The story is really about how you get somewhere and an ending similar in nature to that of 1960's "The Apartment."The picture is just fair as it becomes quite dull at times. The comedy scenes of Sellers being caught in the act aren't exactly played up in the manner that they could have been.
moonspinner55
British-made comedy-drama about an unfulfilled Welsh librarian and family man who contemplates having an affair with the library chairman's flirtatious wife. As played by Peter Sellers (in a benign performance earmarked by the actor's charming aloofness), this character is both ridiculous and endearing eyeing the bums and breasts of Welsh's finest femmes, but the kitchen-sink dynamics of the story never really take hold. The film does have something to say about working-class marriages and lives stuck in a rut, but screenwriter Bryan Forbes can't seem to work big laughs into the narrative, and as a result the picture isn't more than faintly amusing. These type of "oh no, my husband's come home!" situations were surely hoary even in 1962, however Sellers has a nice way of turning the hum-drum into sprightly, if low-keyed, human angst; one is drawn to even the smallest gestures on the basis of his charisma alone. Peter has a wonderful moment kissing Mai Zetterling behind a sheer curtain, and a marvelously-observed bit interviewing for a higher position in the library. His talk of jetting off to parts unknown recalls later studies such as "Charlie Bubbles", and the upbeat ending is cute if utterly unrealistic. **1/2 from ****
Syxiepoo
I saw the film again quite recently and, despite its age it still cracks me up. It must have been difficult for Sellers to contain his enthusiasm playing Lewis, but he manages an appropriately subdued character, bubbling under with sardonic humour and sarcasm. His wonderful treatment of his co-worker, Jenkins, is beautifully sarcastic, yet well meaning, whilst his loathing of Probert is obvious but a little understated. The slightly obvious ploy of the theatre fire whilst he is otherwise engaged, followed by his newspaper criticism next day, still remains hysterically funny. This is one of Sellers best outings, despite the many excellent films he made during his sadly curtailed life.
