Hollywood 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.

I'm sorry, but if you don't laugh, until you cry or your sides ache, at something, hell, at everything in this movie then you'd better check yourself for a pulse. The first four or five times I viewed The Party, I did just that. This is a gut aching, side splitting, fall on the floor, laugh a minute comedy, from start to finish! The scene where the Cornish game hen 'flies' across the dinner table and lands on the tiara of one of the party 'goers' is literally one of the funniest scenes of all time. And it's not just the outrageously funny bumbling physical comedy of Peter Sellers. There is also a subtleness with which Sellers portrays his Indian character that is very visible in his many facial expressions as well as with the 'body language' he uses, that's just as funny. If you even like comedy just a little, you'll love this movie. I give it 4 stars, to infinity!

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!

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.

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".