I have seen the bones of "Ghost in the Noonday Sun" and wonder if a successful movie could ever have been made out of it. Sid Fleishman's book was a curious idea for a movie, anyway.
In this documentary, director Peter Medak (The Ruling Class) diagnoses what went wrong with this troubled production, which Peter Sellers went out of his way to sink.
Sellers was a strange fellow. He wasn't, by all accounts, a team player. Except in rare cases (The Wrong Box springs to mind) he'd rather be the star of a thoroughly rotten movie than take a bit part in a good movie. No one who knew him likes him in retrospect but everyone I've ever heard interviewed about him, whatever else they had to say about him, end up saying he was a genius.
And so he was. And still is. That doesn't excuse him. I'm an artist myself (not an actor and certainly no Sellers) but I side with those who say the "artistic temperament" is a thin cover for bad manners. Like him or hate him, he's still a star, 40 years after his death. Medak himself had to put Sellers' name in the title to rouse any interest in this cathartic film. That speaks volumes.
For anyone interested in behind-the-curtain goings on in the movie business, this documentary is invaluable. It highlights so much that can go wrong in movie making (and the ridiculous power games I have no doubt other stars than Sellers have played) and why anyone who gets involved in it needs to be crazy or at least have good blood pressure.
