I saw this when it first came out and I remember liking it but wondered if there wasn't something more. Like some of the more undervalued films of the era they were held to an unreasonably high standard. Some of the more regarded films have aged rather badly while others which disappointed have held up rather better.
Watching THE PARTY the other night I found myself laughing out loud alone in a room. The toilet scene had me uncontrollably. There is no plot of course, just a series of sight gags. It's a throwback to the Mack Sennet days. You arrived at a location with some notes and started filming and saw what happened. Comedy was built and not written out. Some gags are planned but it was incumbent on the artist to build on them. In this case the artist was the comedian-Peter Sellers. The director was more or less the enabler.
Sellers does the entire film in a slightly broad Indian accent but while he is a pratt he's not a total idiot. He is moral and without a mean bone in his body. He's just a clumsy screw up and what else would you want for a comedy? Of course he was responsible for more bad pseudo-Indian accents than anyone else in history.
And Steve Franken is superb in support as the drunken waiter, a classic comedy part, known as a pi55 act in English Music Hall. This is one of the classical touches Edwards uses. There are more than a few hints that this film is something of an answer to Jacque Tati's sublime PLAY TIME (1967) where instead of making a film on a bespoke set the size of a small city it is done on a single sound stage.
The rest is just for laughs. No message, no lesson. Just comedy tonight.
And one irony, The "Good Girl", Claudine Longet, who needs to be protected from evil old Mr. Divot (!) the lecherous producer (are there any other kind) played by the follicularly devious Gavin MacLeod, was later tried for shooting to death ski star Spider Savitch. She did it but it was ruled an accident. But that's another movie.
Watching THE PARTY the other night I found myself laughing out loud alone in a room. The toilet scene had me uncontrollably. There is no plot of course, just a series of sight gags. It's a throwback to the Mack Sennet days. You arrived at a location with some notes and started filming and saw what happened. Comedy was built and not written out. Some gags are planned but it was incumbent on the artist to build on them. In this case the artist was the comedian-Peter Sellers. The director was more or less the enabler.
Sellers does the entire film in a slightly broad Indian accent but while he is a pratt he's not a total idiot. He is moral and without a mean bone in his body. He's just a clumsy screw up and what else would you want for a comedy? Of course he was responsible for more bad pseudo-Indian accents than anyone else in history.
And Steve Franken is superb in support as the drunken waiter, a classic comedy part, known as a pi55 act in English Music Hall. This is one of the classical touches Edwards uses. There are more than a few hints that this film is something of an answer to Jacque Tati's sublime PLAY TIME (1967) where instead of making a film on a bespoke set the size of a small city it is done on a single sound stage.
The rest is just for laughs. No message, no lesson. Just comedy tonight.
And one irony, The "Good Girl", Claudine Longet, who needs to be protected from evil old Mr. Divot (!) the lecherous producer (are there any other kind) played by the follicularly devious Gavin MacLeod, was later tried for shooting to death ski star Spider Savitch. She did it but it was ruled an accident. But that's another movie.