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Very well executed

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Peter Sellers (in a false nose) plays a poverty-row street-performer in working-class London, using a cute mutt to collect donations while he sings and plays the ukulele, who is befriended by two children whose parents are away all day working. Director Anthony Simmons, who also co-adapted the screenplay with Tudor Gates from his 1964 book, has a keen eye for human behavior, and he allows his star ample to room to show off and be 'whimsical.' Unfortunately, there's not enough going on here to justify the film's elongated running-time, and the bleak surroundings depress an already-melancholy scenario. *1/2 from ****

I remember the scene with the budgerigar act - Don Crown & His Busking Budgies! I would have seen the film as a child in the early seventies and in hindsight I think Sellers was also paying homage to his dad's time as a music hall performer. My mother was conscious of Sellers wearing a prosthetic nose as Sam, but it was a hell of a lot better than the one he had for the sailor guise (as Clouseau) in one of the Pink Panther films! My sister had the book that inspired the film and the depiction of the death of Sam's dog Bella was quite upsetting.A shame the DVD version's sound is poor and subtitles aren't available. I can recall a documentary being on TV about it and this could have done to be on the DVD.

"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...

Despite wretched photography and poor sound, this film is an especially appealing monument to the romanticism of the period in which it was filmed. Sellers is excellent as the street entertainer, and the youngsters playing the two children who are attracted to him are riveting. The music too is to be commended. It's a three star film, worthy of one's time.