Party, The

Party, The

In one of their few non-Clouseau efforts, Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers preserve the spirit of the French bumbler in the person of Hrundi V. Bakshi, an accident-prone Indian actor. Brought to Hollywood to play the title role in Son Of Gunga Din, Bakshi destroys the film's most elaborate set with his bungling and is banned from the set by Edward Clutterbuck (J. Edward McKinley), the film's producer. But because of an error by the producer's secretary, Bakshi's name is added to the guest list of his next party, an A-list affair. Shortly after arriving, Bakshi begins accidentally dismantling Clutterbuck's carefully staged event, destroying a flower bed, knocking a servant through a bay window, and triggering the lawn sprinklers, soaking the producer's pretentious guests. When the producer's daughter, Molly (Kathe Green), and a group of her friends arrive with a Day-Glo-painted elephant, Baskhi is shocked by the sacrilege and insists on washing the pachyderm in one of the house's indoor pools. As the other guests begin to join in the fun, pandemonium erupts. Sellers is typically brilliant in a film abounding in sidesplitting sight gags with a script by Edwards, Frank Waldman (The Pink Panther Strikes Again) and his his brother Tom Waldman (Inspector Clouseau).