The Party (1968) on Netflix
Hrundi V. Bakshi, an actor from India, wrecks a costume epic's set and is fired. His name is meant for a blacklist; instead it lands on a producer's dinner party guest list.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The costume epic Son of Gunga Din is in production when an actor from India, Hrundi V. Bakshi, destroys its enormous fort set by accident. He is fired on the spot. The studio head, General Fred R. Clutterbuck, intends to blacklist him but writes his name on the guest list for his own dinner party instead. The invitation reaches Hrundi, and he drives to the house, where he gets mud on his shoe and tries to wash it in a shallow pool. A waiter later brings him the missing shoe on a silver appetizer platter. Among the guests he meets the Western actor "Wyoming Bill" Kelso, who gives him an autograph, and Michele Monet, an aspiring actress who arrived with the producer C.S. Divot.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Party (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Steve Franken, who played the drunken butler Levinson, struggled to breathe in the foam-filled pool; the scene where his love interest Janice Kane (Corinne Cole) pours a bottle on his face was improvised because he murmured to her to clear the foam.
- The Party's original script ran only 63 pages, the shortest Blake Edwards ever shot from; he said the majority of the film's content was improvised on set.
- Indian director Satyajit Ray planned to cast Peter Sellers as a Marwari businessman in his film The Alien, believing his work in The Party and The Millionairess showed he could play Indian characters; Sellers pulled out and the film fell apart.
- Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers first tried to film part of the movie as a modern silent picture with subtitles, until Sellers wanted to speak; he came up with the name Hrundi V. Bakshi on the spot.
- Hrundi Bakshi went on to inspire Amitabh Bachchan's Arjun Singh in Namak Halaal (1982), Apu Nahasapeemapetilon (voiced by Hank Azaria) in The Simpsons, and Mr. Bean.
- The film was hugely popular in India, where Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a fan and fond of repeating Bakshi's line "In India we don't think who we are, we know who we are!"
- Henry Mancini wrote the song "Nothing to Lose", performed onscreen by Claudine Longet, and joked about audience reactions: "That's what I get for writing a nice song for a comedy."
