The Party Blu-ray Review
BYOB (Bring Your Own Bakshi)
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, September 10, 2014
Blake Edwards will probably forever be best remembered for films like
Breakfast at Tiffany's and
The Pink
Panther, though his filmography also includes a vast array of other well known efforts ranging from
The Great Race to
Victor/Victoria: The Broadway Musical (this links to the Broadway musical version—the
feature film has yet to make it to Blu-ray). But Edwards had his fair share of flops, both critically and commercially, including such mostly
forgotten efforts as
The Tamarind Seed (designed as a comeback vehicle for his wife, Julie Andrews, after their previous collaboration
Darling Lili tanked). In fact, Edwards had achieved a certain reputation for self-indulgence after
The Great Race, a film which
aimed to be another "epic comedy" in the vein of
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but which despite its own considerable charms often felt bloated and chaotic. The late sixties
weren't an especially fecund era for Edwards, who offered the fussy if occasionally humorous
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
and revisited his early television success with
Gunn, a feature film reboot of
Peter Gunn. If
The Party is
unquestionably one of the better Edwards films from this time period, that's perhaps damning the outing with faint praise. Reteaming
Edwards with his
Pink Panther star Peter Sellers probably seemed like a sure fire enterprise, but Edwards was content to simply let
Sellers maraud his way improvisationally through this largely formless film. The results are once again largely self-indulgent and chaotic, but
they reap some decently funny rewards, even if the admittedly sweet natured aspect of the film seems oddly quaint, especially in the light of
the anti-establishment "flower power"
ethos lurking just beneath the surface of a "plot" built around a glittering fete thrown by a
tyrannical Hollywood producer.
Audiences who wandered into
The Party back during its original theatrical exhibition might have initially been checking their ticket
stubs
to see if perhaps they had entered a screening for another 1968 film,
The Charge of the Light Brigade, for this "mod" comedy starts
rather anachronistically with a scene from what appears to be Britain's colonial past. As a haggard group of English soldiers marches
through a
pass, an Indian bugler keeps sounding the alarm despite getting shot—repeatedly. The conceit here is that the scene is actually a film being
shot, and the intrepid bugler, who resolutely refuses to stop bleating and blaring on his instrument despite the insane number of shots fired
in
his direction, is an actor named Hrundi S. Bakshi (Peter Sellers).
Bakshi is for all intents and purposes simply an Eastern rendition of the same sort of clumsy oaf that Sellers' Gallic Inspector Clouseau was,
although Bakshi has a perhaps even more childlike view of the world. But very much like Clouseau, Bakshi has the inerrant habit of fouling
things up, something that invites the acrimony of his superior, in this case not Chief Inspector Dreyfus, but the film's exasperated director
(Herb Ellis). When Bakshi first ruins a take by wearing a contemporary watch and then manages to blow up an important set, the director
bans the hapless actor. A call to studio chief Fred Clutterbuck (J. Edward McKinley) results in the bigwig uttering that famous adage "he'll
never work in this town again." Unfortunately for Clutterbuck, he scribbles the actor's name down on the bottom of a piece of paper that
turns out to be the invitation list to a deluxe party he's having at his tony Beverly Hills home. And that's more or less the set up of
The
Party, a film which then plays out in a series of at times largely improvised vignettes where Sellers is left free to roam the set and wreak
whatever havoc he can.
This loosey-goosey quality is probably
The Party's chief liability, for some scenes (including that opening bugle bit) just go on and on,
without much accretion of additional comedy. The film is actually much better in little throwaway bits like a great little moment in the opening
sequence where smarmy producer C.J. Divot (a rather paunchy Gavin MacLeod) snaps his finger at a nubile young starlet to follow him to his
trailer. The woman's look of glaring hatred is a fantastic little instance of the "real" Hollywood, but of course she stands up and follows her
meal (and/or career) ticket into the trailer.
Some of the bits in the main party sequence are amusing if not laugh out loud hilarious, including Bakshi trying to get back an errant shoe,
or, later, completely destroying a well appointed bathroom. But too often Edwards simply lets Sellers indulge in one piece of business after
another, and it becomes evident after a while that that indulgence is reaping diminishing returns. Some of the funniest bits here come from
the wonderful Steve Franken (a cousin of Al Franken) as an increasingly inebriated waiter who stumbles through various scenes causing
almost as much chaos as Bakshi himself.
Claudine Longet, certainly one of the more minimally gifted vocalists to ever have hit albums (her A&M sides in the sixties were surprisingly
popular) is the putative love interest here, and she also gets to sing the big Henry Mancini play for an Oscar nomination "Nothing to Lose"
(he
did nonetheless lose—the film's music went unrecognized at the Academy Awards that year). Still, the interplay between
Longet and Sellers provides the film with a real sweetness at its center, seeming to offer these two childlike personalities a shot at happily
ever after in the wild and wooly confines of Hollywood, USA.
The Party Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Some fans actually prefer
The Party to at least some of the Inspector Clouseau offerings, but others find the film too self indulgent for its
own good. I probably tip more toward that second category, but the film's wacky charms are undeniable, and Sellers is—well, very
busy
as Bakshi. Interestingly, Edwards' casting of Mickey Rooney as an Asian American in
Breakfast at Tiffany's started raising a newly PC
aware ruckus in the 1990s, though there doesn't seem to be similar outrage with Sellers playing an Indian. That may be testament to Sellers'
innate charm and for how innocently sweet—if often
very dangerous—Hrundi S. Bakshi seems.
Recommended.
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The Party Blu-ray, News and Updates
•
The Party UK Blu-ray Detailed - August 14, 2017
British label Eureka Entertainment has detailed its upcoming Blu-ray release of director Blake Edwards' classic comedy The Party (1968), starring Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Marge Champion, Dick Crockett, and Danielle De Metz. The release will be available ...
•
Upcoming Eureka Enertainment Blu-ray Releases (UPDATED) - July 27, 2017
British label Eureka Entertainment has confirmed that it will add various new titles to its Blu-ray catalog: a box set with three Buster Keaton's films Sherlock Jr., The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr., Blake Edwards' The Party, Richard Fleischer's The Viking, and ...
•
Upcoming Via Vision Blu-ray Releases - December 7, 2016
Australian label Via Vision Entertainment has informed us that it will add various new titles to its catalog in December. Amongst them are Michael Mann's Thief, Norman Jewison's Rollerball, and Blake Edwards' classic comedy The Party.
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