[2] John Lewis is a poorly paid and professionally frustrated librarian and occasional drama critic, whose affections fluctuate between glamorous Liz and his long-suffering wife Jean.

Jean thus learns of the affair and retaliates by encouraging her old flame Gareth Probert, a self-important literary character and dramatist (who wrote the ill-fated play).

[8][9] New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "ANYBODY who could do to organized labor what Peter Sellers did with his thumping performance of a union leader in the British comedy, "I'm All Right, Jack [1959]," is clearly the fellow to do the same thing to sex.

With a script by Bryan Forbes that pops perpetually with some of the brightest British quips of modern times, with Sidney Gilliat directing and with a spanking new Mai Zetterling deftly applying the itching-powders as a grandly seductive Eve, Mr.

The title is misleading because the players in this story of a would-be adulterous Welsh librarian (Peter Sellers) and his wannabe mistress (Mai Zetterling) also include Virginia Maskell as his dispirited wife and Richard Attenborough as the poet she flirts with.

"[11] Leslie Halliwell said: "Well characterised and generally diverting 'realistic' comedy which slows up a bit towards the end but contains many memorable sequences and provides its star's last good character performance.