Um Convidado Bem Trapalhão

Finally, after months of searching, I find a copy of the DVD and I realize how truly worthwhile this search was! This film is hysterical! I've read that The Great Race is supposed to be Blake Edwards' tribute to Laurel & Hardy, but Hrundi V. Bakshi is Stan Laurel's hindustani soul mate. Probably Peter Sellers' single funniest performance ever! He's always well meaning and gracious, but just naive enough to cause chaos everywhere he goes. Much of the business about the wait staff is also straight out of the L&H book of comic situations. Though the ending involving a baby elephant looks to me as if they simply ran out of ideas, the rest of this movie more than makes up for it. Have another "Birdy Num Num".

The Party is not a harmless comedy. It's got a lot of sting in it, against snobbishness and contempt for your fellow man - or woman, for that matter. But above all, it's Peter Sellers who shows his talent here. How an earlier reviewer manages to call this 'a dud' is beyond me.

So the movie loses its pace a bit at the end - maybe trying to underline too much what a nice fellow Bakshi is. But there's a lot of great scenes - the army attack, the parrot, the dinner and that incredible toilet scene. The increasingly drunken waiter (a convincing performance, who is that actor?). And through it all, Bakshi wanders around with that eternal smile on his face.

Sellers manages to combine The Pink Panther's slapstick with a sympathetic character of more depth. Great humour!

Is there a more iconic comedic prologue than The Party's, with Hrundi Bakshi (Peter Sellers, priceless), a bumbling actor involuntarily, repeatedly sabotaging some kind of schlocky adventure / period piece first by refusing to die, then by showing his wholly anachronistic watch and finally by blowing up the set while trying to tie his shoelaces? Because if there is, I can't think of one at the moment.

The movie belongs to veteran comedy director Blake Edwards and especially to Sellers, who provides an hilarious turn as Bakshi, a sweet, meek individual so clumsy and inclined to disaster, he is essentially the human version of a tornado. Material is droll, but at times so thin that with a lesser lead it would have collapsed - Sellers being who he is, the mere sight of him staring with awkward alarm at a toilet which refuses to stop flushing provokes laughter.

8,5/10

This film has to be regarded as a hilarious one-man-act by Peter Sellers. I saw it on its first run UK cinema release in 1969 and I've seen it at least a dozen times since. I would gladly watch it another dozen times; it always makes me laugh. The supporting cast perform adequately but Peter Sellers does all the work. He is simply one of the all-time greatest masters of great comedy timing. I was surprised to read so many negative comments on this site in association with this film. I can only surmise that they have come from a younger generation who have had their sense of humour surgically removed due to a force fed diet of unamusing US sitcoms. If you can't laugh at this film you must be birdie-num-num!

The movie is still fresh after all these years. It's an homage to the slapstick comedy, an homage to the Laurel & Hardy films, and to Chaplin movies as well.

"The party" is the finest achievement of Sellers & Edwards, the film is far superior to the "Pink Panther" series. Why? The story is absolutely simple: by mistake an Indian actor goes to a party in a Hollywood villa. End of the story.

Mr. Hrundi V. Bakshi (the name of the main character) is the kindest and most awkward person you can meet... The film is just made by a group of gags -many are improvised-.

We can see that Peter Sellers, a terrific actor, is also a mime -he can do whatever with the expressions of his face and his body-. For doing such film you have to have a very intelligent and patient director, who knows all the comedy's tricks and let actors play with a total freedom... Blake Edwards is an eclectic director who allows that. Working with Peter Sellers (as Edwards says) was not easy -he had a very difficult personality, either he was the funniest man in the world or he was the most unbearable person. But he was a genius, he let many many gems.

"The Party" is one of them. Brilliant and moving.