The Party (1968)

Plot of The Party: The film opens as a shoot is taking place in a gully, with riflemen hidden on the sides and what looks like a British column passing through. Up on the hill an Indian man plays the bugle, to be shot, but refuses to lie down. Later the same man accidentally blows up a fort built for the climax. The director phones the producer to have the man banned from all future movies. But the producer writes his name at the bottom of a guest list for a big party and the man Hrundi V. Bakshi is invited. From the moment of his arrival everything goes wrong. He loses a shoe which drifts away on a stream. He fiddles with things which go wrong and create mayhem, he floods a bathroom and more. But on the plus side he saves an attractive young actress from the predations of a bald film executive. Later after the arrival of a dance troupe with a baby elephant, covered in slogans, he initiates the cleaning of it, flooding the whole place with foam. If this was not enough, one of the waiters becomes progressively inebriated, causing trouble.

Content: No sex or nudity, although some of the young women wear unfeasibly short skirts. A lot of drinking throughout, at one point Hrundi being adversely affected by alcohol, and of course the drunken waiter features. The film is really just lot of connected scenes, giving Sellers a free hand to big it up however he wants. A lot of people will not even have heard of Peter Sellers today, but one of his characters was an Indian for which he had to have brown make-up. Today you could imagine Mr Bean doing the same thing. Featuring now and again was a Morgan Three Wheeler, definitely constructed before WWII but revived today.

This film was quite well liked, particularly by Indians. The Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was fan. The comedy is a bit in your face but I did laugh out loud when Hrundi destroys the bathroom, including having a painting fall into the lavatory cistern. It did cause a bit of an affray amongst those who are anti-blackface, but it is inoffensive, and back in the day we were all pretty used to it. So if you are not easily offended probably worth a watch. It is motion picture history.

Fun Fact: Apparently those participating in other films around the studio would gather to watch the chaos taking place on the set of The Party.