Hoffman

source: Hoffman

This is at once one of Peter Sellers' least-known and more interesting vehicles; the film is virtually a two-hander – with Sinead Cusack (daughter of actor Cyril and later Mrs. Jeremy Irons) as the young girl blackmailed by a middle-aged colleague (Sellers) into becoming his lover, because he knows of her boyfriend's involvement in a robbery. While the film is considered a comedy, it doesn't sound like it from that synopsis; it's really a character-driven piece on a serious theme – mid-life crisis – which has been treated several times over the years, though rarely in such perceptively intimate detail (for which it was deemed tasteless at the time). The humorous element (if one can call it that) springs from the fact that Sellers' character – who had been fantasizing about Cusack for months – doesn't have the courage to do anything with her once they're together! Incidentally, Hoffman's innately cruel nature was so similar to the real Peter Sellers that one might be inclined to think that his dialogue was improvised – but this wasn't the case! With this in mind, the film can be seen as talky (though Ernest Gebler's script, adapted from his own novel, does contain a smattering of good lines), low-key and claustrophobic (the narrative strays only occasionally from Sellers' flat, and the two almost never interact with other people) – not to mention repetitive and overstretched at 113 minutes! One particular sequence included an ambitious shot lasting for some 18 minutes, which certainly belied the rumors that Sellers had suffered brain damage during that infamous incident from the early 1960s in which he suffered no less than seven heart attacks in one day. The film's happy-ending-of-sorts, then, is highly improbable – but I guess it works well enough in this context (given that Cusack's boyfriend is depicted as a one-dimensional character and, therefore, no match for the intellectual Sellers). Gerry Turpin's cinematography of the bleak London settings is one of the film's main assets, while the tone of romantic melancholy – inherent in Ron Grainer's score and his Don Black-penned theme song, "If There Ever Is A Next Time" (sung by Matt Monro) – infuses the whole film and even serves as exposition for the main narrative during its deliberately vague early stages. By the way, director Rakoff had already handled the same material as a TV production starring Donald Pleasance; at his own admission, the film version was too slow – because the pace seemed to be dictated by the lead actor – and professed to having misgivings also about the choice of music. As for Sellers himself, he was so disappointed with the final result that the star offered to buy back the negative from the producer and shoot it again from scratch (the film, in fact, was such a resounding flop that it wasn't shown in New York until 1982)!

Proof, if one was needed, that the great Peter Sellers was a good an actor as Sir Alec Guinness or Laurence Olivier. He could play any role, and was a versatile as one could get. This film can be watched and cherished by everyone.

Hoffman is probably Sellers' most underrated film. It is very beautifully executed,

Hoffman is another of the lonely middle-aged man pictures that Peter Sellers made during this period (1967-70), mostly, I think to prop up his fragile ego by co-starring him with young beautiful women after his marriage to Britt Ekland crashed. This one may contain the best Sellers performance of those movies (The Bobo-with Ekland-, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, and There's A Girl In My Soup being the others), although it ultimately flops and leaves one with a feeling of dissatisfaction at the end. Sellers plays a business executive who blackmails his beautiful secretary into spending a week with him (he's got the goods on her and her fiance). The standout quality of the film is Sellers' brilliantly underplayed brooding madman, a man with a buried charm beneath a front of psycho-erotic fantasies. Even though the movie has moments of light comedy, one never fails to see the singularly terrifying quality of Sellers' obsession with the girl, either sexual or homicidal. He is marvelously ambiguous in the performance; when he massages the secretary's (Sinead Cusack) neck to work out a cramp, one is not quite sure if he won't crush her to death right there. Unfortunately, the movie follows the all-too-familiar plotline of these Peter Sellers movies. He is the unwanted one, the oddball, who frightens his female prey, until she sees his good side and warms up to him. It is nearly an inverse of The Bobo, where Ekland played the evil one and Sellers the innocent. The Bobo sets the audience up for a happy ending, then ends in a distasteful, unfunny joke. The only way to end Hoffman appropriately is for him to kill Miss Cusack. When the bedroom door closes behind them in the final shot, somehow we don't sense a 25th anniversary in store for this couple. It just isn't believable; why would she go back to this kook? Yet on some level it works, as symbolic of the limited choices for happiness among working class people. The problem is, in a movie, it doesn't work, because the audience is conditioned to responding to motives that are understandable, and everyone knows a beautiful young woman is always in the drivers' seat. The best thing about Hoffman is the supremely conditioned performance by Sellers, one of the world's greatest actors. I don't know if Miss Cusack can act; mostly she walks through the whole picture with that terrified little girl look on her face, but she is adorable. But like The Bobo, the ending undercuts the whole picture; after the script has set us up for strangulation, we get hearts and flowers, and its not a relief; it's a con and a disappointment. 2 1/2 ** out of 4

Ask people what they remember about Peter Sellers, and if they know him at all they'll talk about the Pink Panther films or The Goon Show. In other words, he's forever labelled as a comic actor. In "Hoffman", Sellers plays against type in a straight dramatic performance - and, to be blunt, he's brilliant. "Hoffman" was ignored at the box office upon its' release in 1970, and never got a proper US release. Even today, with a million films on VHS and DVD, you'll have a hard job finding a copy. Audiences were clearly not prepared to sit through a film in which Peter Sellers didn't play four characters, fly through the air and crash painfully, or mask himself in make-up or funny voices. That "Hoffman" is essentially a filmed stage play with only four characters, and is largely just Sellers and Sinead Cusack talking for two hours, also clearly worked against its' success. This is unfortunate, as here we have what is arguably Sellers' best performance. Sellers essentially plays himself...pale, somewhat gaunt, well-spoken, with an undeniable air of restrained madness about him. Sellers' Benjamin Hoffman is a hollow man, a man who has no existence outside of the things he remembers - and the unattainable image of the woman he adores from afar. Fate plays into Hoffman's hands when he obtains blackmail material on the woman's fiance...his price for his silence: a week alone with her in his flat. Sinead Cusack plays this prisoner of Hoffman's desire brilliantly, alternating between fiery Celtic indignation and a childlike quality. Though she can leave Hoffman's clutches at any time, she can never bring herself to do so...firstly out of fear for her future husband, and later because she finds herself captivated by the strangeness of her urbane blackmailer. Sellers is the very picture of quiet madness in this movie, never raising his voice and never displaying any hint of the obsessions that drive him in an overt manner. Hoffman is not a rapist, nor a maniac, but rather a emotional vampire who draws life from the innocence and youth of his 'guest'. Hoffman takes her to dinner, for walks in the park, to a department store, (in one notable scene, Cusack is pictured standing beneath sides of beef - a metaphor almost too unsubtle to work properly. But it does), he treats her with the utmost respect, he never so much as kisses her. In short, he tries to make her love him even though his every utterance and opinion arouse little but hatred in her. Hoffman is clearly goading her with his studied misogyny and his overbearing attempts to make her feel 'at home', fearing that if he ever became a person to her, or she to him, the spell he has cast would crack. And dreams are all Hoffman has, all he knows. Sellers' wraithlike appearance reinforces the vampiric quality of Hoffman...a man who has had all joy and wonder sucked out of his life by crushing domesticity. The Dracula metaphor is explored further in Hoffman's comments about wanting to consume his captive, and in a scene where she bares his neck to him. In short, "Hoffman" is a neglected gem, one of the few movies in which Sellers could escape his clownish characters and simply be Peter Sellers, actor. Or perhaps, Hoffman IS Sellers...? Jeremy Bulloch, best known as Boba Fett in the Star Wars series, plays the little-seen fiance. Also of note is the rather excellent score, composed by Ron Grainer. Grainer, of course, gave the world the best TV theme tune of all time..."Doctor Who". Matt Munro, who sang the title tune to From Russia With Love, does the honours here also with the melancholy song 'If There Ever Is A Next Time'. No Sellers fan should miss this movie. A masterpiece.

I had the good fortune to find this movie at my local library. After seeing it, I was dumbfounded at the fact that this film seems to have been essentially hidden from Sellers' fans. Benjamin Hoffman is a complex and perplexing character, and Sellers reveals the character's personality layer by layer. At first, Hoffman seems totally evil and cold. But as the story progresses, we see that he's a man with very limited social skills, trying to tackle a very difficult problem. He loves a woman from afar, and he learns that she could soon find herself in a disastrous situation. He may be giving her the world's leakiest lifeboat, so to speak, but it's all he has. Sinead Cusack is marvelous as Miss Smith, who has found herself in the most baffling of circumstances. A man she barely knows has blackmailed her into spending the weekend with him, but he treats her politely and makes it a point to be a proper host. He sleeps in the same bed with her but never even kisses her. He takes her shopping and out to dinner at a fine restaurant. This movie is an emotional roller-coaster ride, and it left me wanting to go get in line for another ticket.

It is impossible to imagine how anyone could be indifferent towards this film after having seen it. This is exactly why this little masterpiece is a must, not only for Sellers fans but for pretty much everybody with a capacity to feel. The movie truly unfolds the complexity of human nature and how it manifests itself...Long story short, watch it. A 10.

Matt Monro sings the theme, "If There Ever Is A Next Time," written by Don Black. Enjoyed the movie - Peter Sellers is always good and the movie illustrates his bent for humor that's black and gentle at the same time - and the music might make you into a Matt Monro fan. A good test for your local video store.

Peter Sellers is in best form as an office worker who has always been obsessed with the office secretary, and just before she gets married he blackmails her to spend a week in his apartment letting her think the worst. But in the meantime, he starts to prove something very different to her about himself.