The Battle of the Sexes *** (1959, Peter Sellers, Constance Cummings, Robert Morley) Classic Movie Review 1641

Portsmouth-born Peter Sellers relishes his delicately fake posh Edinburgh district Morningside accent and has a great time in a good part for him as Mr Martin, the mouse-like elderly accountant of an Edinburgh Scottish tweed weaving company who wants first to take on and then later to bump off the newly arrived American battleaxe efficiency expert Angela Barrows (Constance Cummings). Well that’s not a very nice welcome for our American guests, is it?

When Angela’s American company sends her to Edinburgh to investigate export opportunities, she meets middle-aged businessman Robert Macpherson (Robert Morley) on the way and he persuades her to try to help him. He’s taken over the business from his dad Old Macpherson (Ernest Thesiger) and wants to drag his company into the Sixties. Of course Mr Martin’s reactionary staff sees it all entirely differently and a battle to the death between the old and new business methods begins.

Alas, Ealing Studios had gone out of business by the time director Charles Crichton shot this middling-to-good comedy in 1959, but the Ealing spirit lived cheerfully and successfully on in British movies like this one. As usual with Crichton, the film is a celebration of anti-authority, old-fashioned values.

Mixing various elements from classics like The Ladykillers, The Titfield Thunderbolt , Whisky Galore and Passport to Pimlico, this stylish black comedy carves out its own niche and is genially entertaining and considerably better than many people gave it credit for on release in the UK in December 1959. Though, on its American release on April 18 1960, the film had a strong supporter in a warm review in The New York Times. And indeed, happily, it’s one of those lucky movies that’s dated well and improved over time.

With their very different acting styles and strengths, Sellers and Cummings spark very effectively off each other in their battle of the sexes, while co-star Robert Morley does well as always as Macpherson, though he’s hardly very Scottish and looks weird in a kilt. There’s a strong and highly amusing support cast with the likes of Ernest Thesiger, Jameson Clark, Moultrie Kelsall, Alex Mackenzie, Roddy McMillan, Donald Pleasence, Noel Howlett, Glyn Houston, Patricia Hayes, William Mervyn, Michael Goodliffe and Reg Varney, one or two of them actually Scots, thank goodness.

And at the heart of it all, there’s a quite a witty, funny screenplay by Monja Danischewsky, which he reworked from James Thurber’s story The Catbird Seat. Film rights to Thurber’s story were originally owned by Hecht Hill Lancaster, with Billy Wilder signed to direct, but eventually they sold the rights.

Despite some longueurs and hesitations, it’s propelled with calculated direction by Crichton in his old Ealing Studios style a couple of years after the studio’s tragic and unnecessary demise.

Seattle-born Cummings lived in the UK for many decades till her death on November 23 2005, aged 95. She was made a CBE in 1974 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Charles Crichton is the director of Hue and Cry, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Titfield Thunderbolt and A Fish Called Wanda. In Danischewsky is another Ealing veteran too, producing 1949’s Whisky Galore and working with Michael Relph on Rockets Galore (1958).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1641

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