What price Romeo today? Aberdarcy, Wales. With an unsatisfying home life and career, librarian John Lewis (Peter Sellers) spends most of his time daydreaming of illicit affairs with attractive women. When a better paid job in the library becomes vacant, Lewis is reluctant to apply, but is persuaded to do so by Jean who reminds him to post the application form. One day at work he meets the obviously attractive Elizabeth Gruffydd-Williams known as Liz (Mai Zetterling), a designer with the local amateur dramatic company who wants assistance in finding illustrations of mediaeval costumes. She’s the wife of prominent local councillor and chair of the library board Vernon (Raymond Huntley) and offers to have a word with Vernon to help in getting Lewis the job while making it clear she is attracted to him. Lewis is easily seduced into an affair, although it remains unconsummated for a spell. Persuaded by Liz to leave the theatre’s new play early one evening for an assignation, Lewis submits a bogus review to the local newspaper but finds out from Jean the next morning that the theatre burned down shortly after the play began. Jean thus learns of his affair and retaliates by encouraging the attentions of her old flame Gareth L. Probert (Richard Attenborough), a nauseating self-important literary character and dramatist (who wrote the ill-fated play) … If I was going out for the night, I’d be pointing the other way. Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of the 1955 Kingsley Amis comic novel That Uncertain Feeling was deemed so racy by the censor it became the first British comedy to earn an X Cert. How unlikely does that seem, with these meek, mild-mannered Welsh-accented middle class parvenu wannabes. That’s part of the joy in a subtle tectonic analysis of smalltown politicking, marital boredom and desire. We might say this is a British take on The Seven Year Itch, a phrase that features in the introductory voiceover but the bedrock of ambition, getting on and tedium are all Amis. Fans of Sellers the actor will appreciate his downplaying opposite the charming Maskell as his wise put-upon housewife who eventually challenges him. For those wanting him to activate his comic nous, he has a few scenes of slapstick and one with his funny Goon-like voices when he’s surprised on the verge of being in flagrante and tries to weasel out of Liz’s house pretending to be a plumber. Zetterling is fine as the pragmatic femme fatale, a chic socialite who effortlessly parades her beauty, smarts and position, manipulating Sellers into the kind of foolishness he simply doesn’t evince at home where he is a decent married slob with sweet kids. Otherwise it seems pretty tame nowadays except that the devil is in the detail of the dialogue. The job interview when it finally happens is very funny – watching Sellers squirm his way out of interrogation by John Le Mesurier is a joy. Maybe we could postpone the prologue and make it the epilogue. There are some very amusing scenes with Kenneth Griffith as Ieuan Jenkins who gets into a most uncomfortable stage getup. Attenborough is a hoot as the awful pretentious playwright: I was toying with the idea of translating Kafka into Welsh; but, how do you translate his values? The X Cert undoubtedly helped this to the lofty no. 3 at the British box office for the year. An unpleasant coda is that apparently Sellers loathed the tragic Maskell and asked for her to be replaced. When she wasn’t, he handed back his share of the film, she won awards for her performance and he lost out on a big payday. Now that’s funny. Directed by Sidney Gilliat. It’s hardly Kenneth Tynan country really
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