Mr. Topaze

**NEWLY RESTORED FROM THE LAST SURVIVING 35MM PRINTS AND RELEASED FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON BLU RAY AND DVD IN NORTH AMERICA**

**LEGENDARY ACTOR PETER SELLER'S SOLE DIRECTORIAL EFFORT**

Unwilling to sacrifice his principles, Albert Topaze (Peter Sellers), a poor but proud French schoolmaster, loses his job after he refuses to alter the failing grades of one of students. Seizing the opportunity to exploit his well-known honesty, actress Suzy Courtois (Nadia Gray) convinces her lover, the corrupt city council member Castel Benac (Herbert Lom), to hire Topaze as a managing director for one of his shady businesses. But when Topaze learns he is being used, he cunningly turns the tables on Benac and makes off with all the money. Seller s first and only credited directorial feature, Mr. Topaze displays the British comic genius at the peak of his powers alongside his future Pink Panther nemesis Herbert Lom and a stellar supporting cast that includes Nadia Gray, Leo McKern, Billie Whitelaw and Michael Gough. Long considered a lost classic, Mr. Topaze was digitally restored at the request of the British public from the last known surviving 35mm prints held in the BFI National Archive.

Bonus features include, short film Let s Go Crazy (1951), starring Peter Sellers, video essay The Poetry of Realism by Kat Ellinger on Topaze playwright Marcel Pagnol, Abigail McKern Interview with Leo McKern's daughter about her father's life and career, and 24-page booklet with notes on the film s rediscovery by BFI curator Vic Pratt, and a new essay by Roger Lewis, author of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.