The Party

The Party is a 1968 American comedy about Hrundi V. Bakshi, an Indian actor working on a Hollywood production. When his clumsiness during filming destroys an expensive set, the studio wants nothing more to do with him. Through a misunderstanding, his name nonetheless ends up on the guest list for a lavish party at the home of the producer, and he arrives at the mansion expecting a quiet evening. Surrounded by guests he does not know and social customs he cannot read, he sets off a chain of mishaps that grows steadily worse as the night goes on.

Blake Edwards directed and produced the film and wrote the screenplay with Frank Waldman and Tom Waldman. It was the ninth of the twenty-seven features he directed, arriving between What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? in 1966 and Darling Lili in 1970. Peter Sellers leads the cast as Bakshi, with Claudine Longet, Natalia Borisova, Jean Carson, Marge Champion and Al Checco among the credited players, thirty-eight in all.

Made for about two million dollars, the film returned roughly three million worldwide. Its standing has held up over the decades: on IMDb it holds a 7.4 rating from around forty-seven thousand votes, and on TMDB a 7.3 from a much smaller base of under a thousand. A critics' rating of 6.5 from twenty-four reviews places it somewhat below the audience scores.