The Party

The Party. 1968 The Mirisch Corporation & United Artists, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Marge Champion, Fay McKenzie, Gavin MacLeod, Herbert Ellis, Vin Scully (voice only)
Music: Don Black, Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Available at Amazon. Also part of the Peter Sellers MGM Movie Legends Collection.

This is the only non-Pink Panther collaboration involving Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards. Edwards utilized a minimal script, which allowed Sellers and company greater room for improvisation.

Hrundi V. Bakshi (Sellers) is a well-meaning but hapless actor from India who has come to Hollywood to take a role in a movie similar to Gunga Din, only to sabotage the project after blowing up the whole set for the movie. The movie's director (Ellis) fires Bakshi immediately and tries to blacklist him in a call to the head of the studio. Instead, Bakshi's name is accidentally placed on the guest list for the boss's party.

Arriving at the party, Bakshi loses a shoe in the stream that flows through the house, and spends a lot of time retrieving it. He also tries to engage in banter with the other guests, but they only look on with puzzled looks on their faces. Not everyone can't figure him out, as Michèle (Longet) actually makes an effort to socialize with the fish-out-of-water actor. The party goes on, and people get drunker, while Hrundi leaves a trail of accidental destruction and chaos wherever he goes.

Finally, some hippies show up with a baby elephant covered in slogans, and Bakshi requests that the elephant be cleaned off involving the pool water. An unscheduled foam party ensues from the effort to wash the elephant with soap just as the police arrive. Hrundi asks Michèle if she would like him to drive her home, and she accepts.

This is another funny Peter Sellers movie. Recommended.