Director George Roy Hill's The World of Henry Orient (1964), adapted from Nora Johnson's novel by Johnson and her father, Hollywood veteran Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath), is an utterly original comic drama about t... more »wo Manhattan schoolgirls (fabulous newcomers Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth), both from broken/ breaking homes, who conceive mad crushes on a pompous, ridiculous, deplorably bad pianist, the titular Orient (played with magnificent aplomb by Peter Sellers). As they trail him, with enviable freedom, from one New York haunt to another, they somehow bust up his every romantic intrigue, even as they embark on their own painful growing up. Also starring Angela Lansbury, Paula Prentiss, Tom Bosley, Phyllis Thaxter and Bibi Osterwald, and featuring a superb Elmer Bernstein score, available here as an isolated track.« less