"The Optimists of Nine Elms" played last night to a packed house, and I for one wasn't disappointed. As promised, it was touching and yet not sentimental in its story about the relationship between a former music-hall star and the urchins who find in the old busker first a solution to their boredom, then to their affection-starved lives.
The odd uncertainty of the eras in its setting -- as epitomised by the shots in which the hulk of Battersea Power Station and post-war slums are contrasted with jet-liners and executive helicopters -- is explained when you learn that the film's origins were indeed back in the early 1950s. (The director, who was present at the screening, catalogued for us the long process of delays by which it finally reached the stage of production!) And once you know that the scenario was originally intended for Buster Keaton, it's very easy to sense an unspoken echo in the writing of many of the scenes, from the scrapbook's childhood billing of "Little Sammy Hall" onwards.
But Peter Sellers, the actor who eventually made the part his own after many re-casting attempts fell through, is by no means a bottom-of-the-barrel substitute. The child actors are good (although in places their line readings came across as stilted; Liz's pert answerings-back to her mother seemed particularly prone to this) but Sellers carries the film as the shabby, capering, yet unconsciously dignified showman, still working the crowds with material that ranges from 'flappers' back to the Zulu Wars. Unlike the children's parents, he can employ a lifetime's experience with hecklers when faced with juvenile persistence -- and they, of course, are young enough to be fascinated by his patter, his treasure-trove of costumes, and his beloved dog. Especially the dog.
It takes a special sort of talent to portray a child of the stage who thinks nothing of dancing across a bridge while pushing an old pram, but Peter Sellers creates a credible character who is both a whimsical performer and a seasoned street survivor, aided and abetted by a soundtrack that supplies the unheard music of his life. We hear in voice-over, as if from a past age, fuller performances of the songs that are interrupted within the story by the business of the plot and of the busking life, and to be honest I kept expecting a flashback that would flesh out the ghosts of his past. But the costumes, the songs, the tales of fellow performers and the snippets of personal history remain just that: snippets that leave us, and the children, tantalised.
There is a good deal of humour in the script, principally but not entirely in Sam Hall's idiosyncratic comebacks and put-downs, but there is also feeling. I don't personally like dogs, but the children's predicament has me touched -- and their performances alongside Sellers, especially the non-professional Donna Mullane as Liz, have just the right touch of hard-boiled scepticism versus hunger for magic. The busking budgerigar act is also worthy of mention! And surely this must be the only film to show brutalist concrete skyscrapers as the Promised Land...
The odd uncertainty of the eras in its setting -- as epitomised by the shots in which the hulk of Battersea Power Station and post-war slums are contrasted with jet-liners and executive helicopters -- is explained when you learn that the film's origins were indeed back in the early 1950s. (The director, who was present at the screening, catalogued for us the long process of delays by which it finally reached the stage of production!) And once you know that the scenario was originally intended for Buster Keaton, it's very easy to sense an unspoken echo in the writing of many of the scenes, from the scrapbook's childhood billing of "Little Sammy Hall" onwards.
But Peter Sellers, the actor who eventually made the part his own after many re-casting attempts fell through, is by no means a bottom-of-the-barrel substitute. The child actors are good (although in places their line readings came across as stilted; Liz's pert answerings-back to her mother seemed particularly prone to this) but Sellers carries the film as the shabby, capering, yet unconsciously dignified showman, still working the crowds with material that ranges from 'flappers' back to the Zulu Wars. Unlike the children's parents, he can employ a lifetime's experience with hecklers when faced with juvenile persistence -- and they, of course, are young enough to be fascinated by his patter, his treasure-trove of costumes, and his beloved dog. Especially the dog.
It takes a special sort of talent to portray a child of the stage who thinks nothing of dancing across a bridge while pushing an old pram, but Peter Sellers creates a credible character who is both a whimsical performer and a seasoned street survivor, aided and abetted by a soundtrack that supplies the unheard music of his life. We hear in voice-over, as if from a past age, fuller performances of the songs that are interrupted within the story by the business of the plot and of the busking life, and to be honest I kept expecting a flashback that would flesh out the ghosts of his past. But the costumes, the songs, the tales of fellow performers and the snippets of personal history remain just that: snippets that leave us, and the children, tantalised.
There is a good deal of humour in the script, principally but not entirely in Sam Hall's idiosyncratic comebacks and put-downs, but there is also feeling. I don't personally like dogs, but the children's predicament has me touched -- and their performances alongside Sellers, especially the non-professional Donna Mullane as Liz, have just the right touch of hard-boiled scepticism versus hunger for magic. The busking budgerigar act is also worthy of mention! And surely this must be the only film to show brutalist concrete skyscrapers as the Promised Land...
