EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

cedric-martin In this picture, Peter Sellers has showed, in my humble opinion, that he was the very best comic actor of his time, and probably of all times. Sure the movie is from the 60's and the standards have kind of changed since then, but I can't stop laughing when I watch The Party, even if I surely know ahead what's gonna happen. Great comedy!

Steve Wren I've seen this movie maybe 20 times since I first saw it in network TV in Sydney as a youngster. Since then I've watched it with 2 wives, my kids and grandkids and lifelong friends as devoted to it's magic as I am. I'm not mad in Sellers but this piece of pantomime magic must be his crowning achievement. In the opening sequences he's sounding a bugle retreat as he gets shot about 50 times and each time the bugle call struggles but makes a comeback. That sequenced caused me to miss two days of school because I laughed so hard I felt I'd been hit by a truck. So many moments and one liners that are still part of my family's in jokes. See it. Own it.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues Since the first time in 1986 when l watched this comedy l was disappointed by the end....so l saw one more time on cable TV trying to see something more around 1998...nevetherless my opinion wasn't change....yesterday l pick the DVD after twenty years to has the final opinion about this famous movie....The first half part is really good with some odds situations that are worth of note,which including the bathroom's scene,but the ending when all house is turns a total mess spoil the movie,more,Blake Edwards isn't to any taste after all...so this movie is quite clear overrated to me...this kind of comedy didn't make my head.Resume: First watch: 1986 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 6.5

lasttimeisaw Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers' rowdy comedy about an Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi (Sellers), who is brought from India to act in a studio epic picture. When his offbeat improvisation and unwitting behaviour sabotage the entire production, he is fired and black- listed, but by a single mistake, his name is added onto the guest list of a party thrown by Alice Clutterbuck (McKenzie), the wife of the studio head Fred Clutterbuck (McKinley). So Hrundi happily accepts the invitation and attends the party in Clutterbuck's posh mansion, and turns the party into an absurd and bubbly farce.The absurdity might come from the influences of Jacques Tati, but its calibration is much broader and the devil-may-care outlandishness is less refined, quite pertinent to serve the purpose of caricaturing the tawdry and supercilious constitutions of the Tinseltown industry though. Without a particular character-building or story-unfolding, the story meanders aimlessly through Hrundi's slapstick around various characters, among which the guests are all dignified in their formality, apart from the host and hostess, some notable ones are the Western film star Kelso (Miller), a haughty Ms. Dunphy (Champion), and a French chanteuse Michele Monet (Longet) accompanied by bigot producer C.S. Divot (MacLeod). The scale of buffoonery balloons accordingly through Hrundi's often unintended bumbling, and the drunkenness of the waiter Levinson (Franken), whose clash with the major-domo Harry (Lanphier) is crack. But essentially, it is Sellers' one-man-show, fashions a funny Indian accent, his gaucheness is a miraculous laughter-inducer, against his self-aware diffidence, he is an exemplary comedian, a bona-fide humorist, who is too good to debase himself into raunchiness, no vulgar toilet jokes, instead his pee-holding antics producing one of the optimal funny moments inside a toilet. Edwards' long-time collaborator Henry Mancini scores an entertaining big band soundtrack, where the theme song NOTHING TO LOSE sung by Monet in the film is agreeably catchy. It is difficult to me to claim this is the best comedy of its time, as evidently Edwards lets it loose a bit near the end, all sensational but also indolent in its development, the whole farce evolves into a revelry, without considerable moderation when a painted elephant walks into the foreground, finally as if all the ballyhoo only makes a contribution to en-kindle a budding romance between Hrundi and Michele, we never get a punch-drunk final blow the film seems to promise with its pungent irony, in spite of all its distinctive merits and innovative comic bravura