The Party (1968 film)

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The Party
The Mirisch Corporation
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • April 4, 1968 (1968-04-04)
Running time
99 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.5 million
Box office$2.9 million (U.S. rentals)[1]

The Party is a 1968 American

improvisational comedy talents.[2] Based on a fish-out-of-water premise, the film is about a bungling actor from India, Hrundi V. Bakshi (portrayed by Sellers), who accidentally gets invited to a lavish Hollywood dinner party and "makes terrible mistakes based upon ignorance of Western ways".[3]

The protagonist Hrundi Bakshi was influenced by two of Sellers' earlier characters: the Indian doctor Ahmed el Kabir in

Bollywood blockbuster Namak Halaal,[4] and Hank Azaria's character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons.[5]

Plot

A film crew is making a

blacklist
him, but he inadvertently writes it on the guest list of his upcoming dinner party.

Hrundi receives his invitation and drives to the party. Upon parking his car, he steps into mud. Hrundi tries to rinse the mud off his shoe in a pool that flows through the house, but he loses his shoe. After many failures, he is reunited with his shoe served to him on a silver platter by one of the waiters.

Hrundi has awkward interactions with everyone at the party, including Clutterbuck's dog, Cookie. He meets famous

Western movie actor "Wyoming Bill" Kelso, who gives Hrundi an autograph. Hrundi later accidentally shoots Kelso with a toy gun, but Kelso doesn't see who did it. Hrundi feeds a caged macaw food from a container marked "Birdie Num Num" and drops the food on the floor. Hrundi at various times during the film activates a panel of electronics that control the intercom, a copy of the Manneken Pis
(soaking a guest), and a retractable bar (while Clutterbuck is sitting at it). After Kelso hurts Hrundi's hand while shaking it ("My goodness, I would have been disappointed if you hadn't crushed my hand"), Hrundi sticks his hand into a bowl of crushed ice containing caviar. While waiting to wash his hand, he meets aspiring actress Michèle Monet, who came with producer C.S. Divot. Hrundi shakes Divot's hand, and Divot then shakes hands with other guests, passing around the fishy odor, and back to Hrundi after he has washed his hand.

At dinner, Hrundi's place setting by the kitchen door has a very low chair that puts his chin near the table. An increasingly drunk waiter, Levinson, tries to serve dinner and fights with the other staff. During the main course, Hrundi's roast chicken catapults off his fork and becomes impaled on a guest's tiara. Hrundi asks Levinson to retrieve his meal, but the woman's wig comes off along with her tiara, as she obliviously engages in conversation. Levinson ends up brawling with other waiting staff, and dinner is disrupted.

Hrundi apologizes to his hosts; then needs to go to the bathroom. He wanders through the house, opening doors and barging in on various servants and guests in embarrassing situations. He ends up in the backyard, where he accidentally sets off the irrigation sprinklers. At Divot's insistence, Michèle gives an impromptu guitar performance of "Nothing to Lose" to impress the guests. Hrundi goes upstairs, where he saves Michèle from Divot's unwanted advances by dislodging Divot's toupee. Hrundi finally finds a bathroom, but he breaks the toilet, drops a painting in it, gets toilet paper everywhere, and floods the bathroom. To avoid being discovered Hrundi sneaks onto the roof and falls into the pool. Michèle leaps in to save him, but he's then coerced to drink alcohol to warm up. A Russian dance troupe arrives at the party. Upstairs, Hrundi finds Michèle crying in the next room and consoles her. Divot bursts in and demands Michèle leave with him. Michèle says no, and Divot cancels her screen test the next day. Hrundi persuades her to stay and have a good time with him. They return to the party in borrowed clothes. The party gets wilder, and Hrundi offers to retract the bar to make room for dancing. Instead, he opens a retractable floor with a pool underneath, causing guests to fall in the pool. Levinson makes more floors retract, and more guests fall in. Clutterbuck's daughter arrives with friends and a baby elephant painted with "THE WORLD IS FLAT" on its forehead and hippie slogans over its body. Hrundi takes offense and asks them to wash the elephant. The entire house is soon filled with soap bubbles.

Back at his home, Divot suddenly realizes that Hrundi is the fired actor who blew up the set, and he races back to the party. As the band plays on, Clutterbuck tries to save his suds-covered paintings. The air conditioning blows suds everywhere as the guests dance to

Stetson hat as Hrundi and Michèle leave in Hrundi's Morgan
three-wheeler car. Outside her apartment, Hrundi and Michèle appear on the verge of admitting that they have fallen for each other. Hrundi gives Michèle the hat as a keepsake, and she says he can come get it any time. Hrundi suggests he could come by next week, and she readily agrees. Hrundi smiles and drives off as his car backfires.

Cast

Cast notes

Production

The Party was the only non-

Pink Panther collaboration between Sellers and Edwards. Producer Walter Mirisch knew that Sellers and Edwards were considered liabilities; in his autobiography, Mirisch wrote "Blake had achieved a reputation as a very expensive director, particularly after The Great Race."[7] Sellers had played an Indian man (Dr. Ahmed el Kabir) in his hit film The Millionairess (1960), and another Indian physician in The Road to Hong Kong (1962). He is mostly remembered as a similar klutz as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther
series.

The film started shooting in May under the title RSVP.[8]

The film's interiors were shot on a set, at the

MGM lot, though this may be a mistake as IMDb lists the Samuel Goldwyn Studios on Formosa as the correct address, likely as other Mirisch Productions, including West Side Story, were shot there as well. The original script was only 63 pages in length.[9]
Edwards later said it was the shortest script he ever shot from, and the majority of the content in the film was improvised on set.

The film draws much inspiration from the works of

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. However, it was not the same car (Salmson AL3). The entire film storyline is reminiscent of the Royal Garden restaurant sequence of Playtime, and the comedic interaction with inanimate objects and gadgets parallels several of Tati's films, especially Mon Oncle.[10]

Soundtrack

The score of The Party was composed by

BMG Victor
.

Track listing

Side 1:

  1. "The Party" (Vocal) 2:14
  2. "Brunette in Yellow" 2:56
  3. "Nothing to Lose" (Instrumental) 3:18
  4. "Chicken Little Was Right" 2:54
  5. "Candleleight on Crystal" 3:05
  6. "Birdie Num-Num" 2:21

Side 2:

  1. "Nothing to Lose" (Vocal) 2:25
  2. "The Happy Pipers" 2:17
  3. "Party Poop" 2:34
  4. "Elegant" 4:44
  5. "Wiggy" 3:02
  6. "The Party" (Instrumental) 3:12

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 23 reviews, with an average score of 6.60/10.[11]

The Party is considered a classic comedic

brownface routine, The Party is one of his very best films...Taking a page from Tati, this is neorealist comedy, purposefully lacking a director's guiding eye: look here, look there. The screen is crammed full of activity, and the audience's eyes are left to wander where they may."[15]

Racial criticism

The Party has been criticized as having perpetuated

subcontinental brothers. Still, propelled by Seller's insane brio, this late display of blackface provided some guilty chuckles, and at least one enduring catchphrase (the immortal 'Birdie num-num')."[18] (Edwards has run into similar later criticism for his inclusion of Mickey Rooney's overbroad Japanese caricature in Breakfast at Tiffany's
).

However, the film was also hugely popular in India. The late Indian Prime Minister

Bollywood blockbuster Namak Halaal.[4] Additionally, for his film The Alien, Indian director Satyajit Ray was planning on casting Sellers as a Marwari businessman. Ray was a fan of Sellers, and believed he could convincingly portray Indian characters based on his performances in The Party and The Millionairess. Sellers eventually pulled out of the project and the film fell apart.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969, p. 15.
  2. ^ a b Champlin, Charles (March 15, 1968). An open invitation to play it off the cuff. Time
  3. .
  4. ^ a b "Picture the song: Bring out the eyeshades for 'Jawani Jaanemann' from 'Namak Halaal'". Scroll.in. July 31, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
  5. National Public Radio (Interview). Interviewed by Terry Gross. Philadelphia: WHYY-FM
    . Retrieved August 15, 2007.
  6. ^ Koseluk, Chris (April 16, 2008). "The voice of generations." The Hollywood Reporter
  7. .
  8. ^ Champlin, Charles (May 14, 1967). "A Sellers' Market for Comedy: A Sellers' Market for Comedy". Los Angeles Times. p. c1.
  9. ^ a b Aushenker, Michael (June 25, 2008). "'The Party' to Remember: Blake Edwards' Cult Classic Turns 40!". Palisadian-Post. Archived from the original on April 9, 2009. Retrieved August 18, 2012.
  10. ^ Robinson, Tasha (April 19, 2002). The Party (DVD) The A.V. Club
  11. ^ The Party, Rotten Tomatoes, retrieved March 19, 2022
  12. ^ Stafford, Jeff. Cult Movies: The Party via Turner Classic Movies
  13. .
  14. .
  15. .
  16. ^ "In 'The Party', Peter Sellers' Brownface Is the Elephant in the Room". PopMatters. October 27, 2014. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
  17. ^ "Peter Sellers: 10 essential films". British Film Institute. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
  18. ^ "Shane Danielson on Hollywood's racist caricatures". the Guardian. September 15, 2007. Retrieved December 13, 2022.
  19. ^ Thank You, Peter Sellers
  20. .
  21. .
  22. ^ Thapar, Romesh (1996). Seminar. R. Thapur. p. 250.
  23. ^ "Travails With The Alien by Satyajit Ray: Review - The Free Press Journal". freepressjournal.in. May 29, 2019.

External links