We never know when someone significant to our life’s path may enter the frame. Their impact may be positive or negative, but whatever the case may be, it can change us forever. In the case of the Hungarian-born Filmmaker Peter Medak, many have crossed his career’s path, but none have had as much impact as Peter Sellers.
A tragic story of frustration, hard-learned life lessons, and a scare for one’s eternal confidence, Peter Medak was a young filmmaker with tons of potential when he met Peter Sellers. Had worked on interesting films such as 1968’s Negatives, plus movies like 1972’s A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and The Ruling Class, Sellers and he had become acquainted through the years. Quite friendly with one another, Sellers admired Medak’s success and, as a result, personally requested that he direct a Pirate Comedy. An honor for Medak (considering Sellers one of the most talented Comedians of the 20th century, with credits including 1964’s Dr. Strangelove and The Pink Panther series), he agreed and soon became the director of Ghost in the Noonday Sun, a film starring Sellers.
What should have been a magical experience turned out to be entirely dreadful and almost destroyed Medak’s career. Hard to imagine, the production of Ghost in the Noonday Sun was filled with mental anguish and destruction of Medak’s own self-image due to Sellers’ unprecedented detachment from the project, where he did everything he possibly could to be released from it (including faking a heart attack), but even worse, tried to get Medak fired. Something Medak obviously took very personally, the experience of working with Sellers is one he would not soon forget, and he carried it throughout his life.
With all of this in mind, even after decades of success in film and television (directing the classic 1980 Horror film The Changeling, as well as many major television series episodes such as Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc), Medak yearned to make sense of the utter nightmare that was 1973 on the set of Ghost in the Noonday Sun with Seller, bringing it all together in his documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers. Starting work in 2016, Medak spent two years researching and conducting interviews for his film, trying to close a wound that remained open for over four decades. Something challenging for anyone to do when looking back on a negative situation, these interviews included one with Ghost in the Noonday Sun’s producer, John Heyman, who Medak received letters from in 1973 that he would be fired if the film was not completed.
Truly digging deep into the past, Medak completed The Ghost of Peter Sellers, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2018, before a broader release in 2020. Now, for the first time, North American viewers can own the documentary on Blu-ray thanks to Severin Films. Released August 26, 2025, it corresponded with the release of two other Medak feature films from Severin Films on the same day, 1968’s Negatives and 1978’s The Odd Job. With a lot of quality Medak material to look into, The Ghost of Peter Sellers is a fascinating documentary that objectively reflects on the situation surrounding Ghost in the Noonday Sun and Peter Sellers back in 1973.
Something you might think Medak would approach with malice, considering how Sellers treated him, instead, he comes across as consistently loving and admiring. Yes, Medak acknowledges the hurt and scars the working experience with Sellers left on him, but he also looks at all the factors surrounding the doomed production of Ghost in the Noonday Sun. With this, you might wonder what is the point of this documentary. Well, the fact is, Medak makes amends with the past and offers closure to something that changed him forever. You could say it is a very personal and cathartic form of therapy, and that is true. However, it is also about human nature, facing adversity, and inevitably forgiveness and understanding.
Overall, The Ghost of Peter Sellers is a very unique documentary that gives you insight into a particular event in one’s life that you could very well relate to in your own. A reminder that we should always stop and think about how we are treating others, Cryptic Rock gives Severin Film’s Blu-ray release of The Ghost of Peter Sellers 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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