Lost Peter Sellers films to be screened for first time in half a century

For the first time in 50 years, two lost films which star actor Peter Sellers will be shown to the public.

15:27 11 December 2013

Peter Seller’s early lost films Dearth of a Salesman and Insomnia is Good For You that were made in 1957 will be screened for the first time in 50 years at the Southend Film Festival.

The films, which were spoof government information films, were originally saved from a skip outside a film company’s office in 1996 before they were forgotten yet again.

Sellers was already a radio star with the Goons when the films were made but he was not yet a established screen actor. Later on, he made films that became successful such as Being There, The Pink Panther, and Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Love the Bomb).

Building manager Robert Farrow was the one who found the films while he was overseeing the clearout of Park Lane Film’s former office in London.

"[I] thought they would be good for storing my Super 8 collection in. It was then I realised they were two Sellers films including the negatives, titles, show prints, outtakes and the master print. It was amazing.”

He added: "They're kind of a pastiche of the public information films at the time. They're not riotous comedy, they're just good fun to look at."