Actor Peter Sellers was famous for saying he had no personality of his own.  Somehow, he stepped into his vast array of characters like a chameleon.  That’s what he wanted us to think.

Based on the novel “I Want to Eat You” by Ernest Gebler.

The motion picture “Hoffman” (1970) may come closest to the real Peter Sellers, if there was one.

PLOT.  “Hoffman” is the story of a 40ish man who blackmails a 20ish girl into living him with him for a week.  Sellers as Hoffman has obsessed over “Miss Smith” (Sinead Cusak) for some time.  In a telling scene, he mentions how he once asked her out, after which she told the other girls in the office who laughed at him in the elevator.  Hoffman has agreed to respect her during their forced time together in exchange for an “erotic encounter”.  Miss Smith is aghast at the prospect of living with a strange man.  But then, why does she?  To save her boyfriend/fiancé who isn’t worth saving?

Will they or won’t they?

In Peter Sellers real life, he self-obsessed about his image, grew weary of playing the bumbling fool and wanted to be taken seriously as an actor.  It didn’t help that he was suffering, most likely from manic-depression.

He would rise to the heights of fame, then plummet to a long string of box-office failures.

The multi-dimensional Peter Sellers played three roles in “Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964)

“The Bobo” (1967.) A commercial and artistic flop.

In “Hoffman”, we see the melancholy Sellers who tries to convince the girl (and us) of who he really is.  It’s surprising he would take such a role and not surprising he would ignore it, later on, not wanting to talk about it.  It’s simply too close to the truth, too close to finding out who the real Peter Sellers was and he didn’t want it.  Consequently, he attempted to buy the original negative and destroy it.  Fortunately, EMI’s contract forced it to be released.

The tragedy of the lonely man.

Audiences didn’t respond well to “Hoffman”.  They weren’t ready for an “unfunny” sad comedy.  It is barely known of except by Sellers fans.

Throughout Peter Sellers career, comedy remained foremost – the safe choice.  In the end, there was a comeback with “Being There” (1979), a deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination, which he should have won.  Death came from a heart attack in the following year.

Peter Sellers as Chance the gardener “Chauncey Gardiner” in “Being There”

“Hoffman” is available on a new 2022 Blu-ray disc, (and as a DVD) on “The Peter Sellers Collection.”

Text ©2022 – EricReports