THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP

Peter Sellers is one of my all time favorite comic actors. He seldom fails to make me laugh no matter what the film or role he's playing. So, I would think that pairing the great Sellers with the ditzy, screwball actress Goldie Hawn (not long removed from her days on televisions' ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN) in an R rated British sex farce would be a can't miss recipe for some naughty hijinks.

Except that I'd be dead wrong.

THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP (1970) is based on a long running British play by Terence Frisby. Frisby and Peter Kortner do much to open up the action in the narrative but ultimately, the film cannot escape it's origin as material for the stage and thus, there are many scenes that suffer from an inherent "stagy" quality.

The plot concerns the adventures of Robert Danvers (Sellers), a restaurant critic who has a popular television show. He's also a letch who scores with almost every beautiful young woman he meets. But when he meets kooky American Marion (Hawn), he's met his match. Although the two get off to a rocky start, they do eventually fall in love only to have Marion walk out on Danvers in the final act, leaving the middle aged lothario right back where he started from, ready for his next sexual conquest.

There's some brief glimpses of female nudity here and there, horrible pop songs by Mike D'Abo punctuate the soundtrack, and a supporting player, the hippie drummer and Marion's former lover Jimmy (Nicky Henson), is the winner of the Don Stroud look-alike contest. It says something about the tepidness of the film when the thing that got me most excited was seeing a large poster of the Incredible Hulk (drawn by Jack Kirby), on the wall of Jimmy's "pad".

Hawn is fine here. She's her usual giggly, adorable self who occasionally shows some flashes of maturity and depth. No, the real problem here is, sadly, Sellers.

When you hire Sellers to star in your film, you should give him a larger than life character to play, preferably one with an accent and he should certainly be allowed to engage in some of the slapstick buffoonery that he exceled at. That's not the case here. As Sellers himself said, "they've hired me to play Cary Grant". Oh there are a couple of moments of physical schtick that show Sellers doing what he did best but those scenes are few and far between.

If you're looking for a vintage Peter Sellers comedy that is guaranteed to produce laughs, move along. There are none to be had here.