ONLY TWO CAN PLAY

UK, 1962, 106 minutes, Black and white.
Peter Sellers, Mai Zetterling, Virginia Maskell, Richard Attenborough, Kenneth Griffiths.
Directed by Sidney Gilliat.

Only Two Can Play is a lesser-known Peter Sellers vehicle. In its time, however, it received great acclaim, nominated for acting awards as well as best film in the 1962 BAFTAs and winning the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain award. It is an opportunity to see Peter Sellers in a more modest film and to see his capacity for mimicking particular styles, here a mousy Welsh librarian. He was on the verge of great fame as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther which came out the following year.

The film has excellent credentials. It was directed by Sidney Gilliat who, with Frank Launder, was responsible for many striking films of the 40s and 50s ranging from thrillers like Green for Danger to comedies like The Belles of St Trinian’s. The film was based on a novel by Kingsley Amis and has a screenplay by Bryan Forbes, an actor who became a director but who had a long career in writing screenplays. Around this time he wrote The Angry Silence, The L -Shaped Room and Séance on a Wet Afternoon. Richard Attenborough appeared in two of these films and appears here as an aggressive Welsh poet.

With Peter Sellers is Mai Zetterling, the Swedish actress who made such an impression in British films in the late 40s and early 50s and had some international popularity with Knock on Wood where she appeared with Danny Kaye. In her later career, she was to become a director.

Only Two Can Play is a sex comedy – on the verge of the more permissive 1960s so the film is strong on innuendo and indirect humour rather than the more open and blatant humour of later years and decades.

1. The emphasis of the title, the original novel's title was 'That Uncertain Feeling'. Indications of titles?

2. The British tone of the film, British films around 1960? Black and white photography, Welsh locations, ironic music? The ironic touch to a romantic comedy, sex comedy?

3. The impact of the opening, the presentation of Wales, the town, the library, the married man's life in the town, the status of marriage? These as a background for the themes of the film?

4. The film's comment on this environment and its effect on people: the town itself and its way of life, transport, jobs, housing, neighbours, the difference between wealth and poverty, the middle classes? How ironic the comment?

5. The themes of success and ambitions? Lewis and his job, promotion, the need for extra money? His rival in the library and his manoeuvres to get the job? Wives and the relationship to their husbands' success? The irony of the playwright friend who had succeeded? Success and money?

6. The presentation of Lewis at work in the library, Peter Sellers' interpretation of this job? His skills as a librarian? His eyeing the girls? His work for the man who wanted dirty books? The manoeuvring for jobs?

7. The emphasis on sexuality and the seven-year itch? The girls in the library, the bus? Lewis's infatuation for Liz? The infatuation at the party, kissing her? His allowing himself to be seduced by her? His manoeuvring to go to her place? The lift in the car, the bedroom sequence and the hilarious consequences, the outing in the car while the theatre burned down? Liz's manoeuvring to get him the job? The irony of presenting Bill as the cast-off lover baby-sitting for the children? The film's comment on sexuality, the serious side, the comic side?

8. The contrast with the presentation of marriage? Liz and the formal marriage with her husband? His devotion to business and not realizing what was going on? Lewis's wife, the children and the details of life at home, outings, the drabness of their life? The importance of Lewis's straying, the showdown after the burning of the theatre, talking out the issues, forgiveness? By the end had Levis learnt or not?

10. The comic observation of the way of life, farcical situations and slapstick humour, the caricatures in the types? Humorous situations like the play not starting on time and the burning down of the theatre? The farmer confronting him and Lewis in the car etc.?

11. How well delineated were the main characters as characters? Or were they types representing particular attitudes?

12. How accurate was the comic observation of human nature? The moral tone taken? The insight into the life of the ordinary man?