Peter Sellers (in a false nose) as a poverty-row street performer in working-class London who uses a cute mutt to collect donations while he sings and plays the ukulele; he's soon befriended by two latchkey children from the neighborhood. Director Anthony Simmons, who also co-adapted his 1964 book with screenwriter Tudor Gates, has a keen eye for human behavior, though he allows his star perhaps too much room to show off and be 'whimsical.' There's really not enough going on here to justify the film's elongated running-time, while the bleak surroundings depress an already-melancholy scenario. *1/2 from ****
Review of The Optimists
