La Party

Blake Edwards, Henry Mancini and Peter Sellers team up again and it's a winner.

A Hindustani meets the high society of Hollywood, the chaos is programmed and the laughs hit hard.

A culture clash comedy from 1968 by the great Blake Edwards with a hilarious Peter Sellers in one of his funniest roles as Hrundi V. Bakshi.

It's still so much fun to watch this movie with its fine slapstick scenes and timinig, masterful camera work and perfect soundtrack by Henry Mancini.

The first 2/3rd of the movie are great, at the end in the final 1/3rd it loses some of its pace.

A great comedy. Always a good watch.

Highly recommended.

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!

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.

What can you say about Peter Sellers? From the Goon Show, through the Ealing comedies, the Pink Panther films, up to Being There, he was consistently brilliant! Kubrick knew it, Blake Edwards knew it, and this movie does a lot to prove it to everyone else. Instead of making his stereotype just a vehicle for laughs, he brings out the pathos and beauty inherent in alienation..instead of using scripted antique gags as an invitation to walk through the role, he transcends each tired joke with impeccable timing and facial expressions. Even the silly sixties situations don't ruin the comedy here, as they did in Alice B. Toklas. In my opinion, this one is timeless, and should be seen by anyone who has a sense of humor.

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