Posted on 12/30/2012 1:32:47 PM PST by ReformationFan
Today being New Year's Eve Eve so to speak is the inspiration for this Sunday's feature. The triumvirate of Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini's only non-Inspector Clouseau comedy. It basically concerns a blacklisted Indian actor who gets accidentally invited to a swank Hollywood party and the ensuing chaos that occurs. It's a very loosely structured film but makes for an amusing time capsule of 1968 Hollywood. Worth watching if you're a fan of Sellers, Edwards and/or Mancini.
Birdie num-nums
Exactly.
A lot of it is essentially silent comedy, like Keaton or Jacques Tati.
Damn. You beat me to it.
Love Steve Franken as the drunk waiter at the dinner! Another great one from Blake Edwards.
He’s hilarious. Also like Denny Miller as the burly cowboy actor. The hostess who keeps falling into the pool is pretty funny too. And I really enjoy the maid’s dance to the title song at the end.
Per wikipedia:
“The original script was only 63 pages in length. Edwards later said it was the shortest script he ever shot from, and the majority of the content in the film was improvised on set.”
The gimmick at the beginning where he loses his shoe in the pool and the dinner scene where the waiter and butler are fighting in the backgroud in the kitchen are examples of silent comedy in it.
What ever happened to that air gun? I think a neighborhood kid had one, but I haven't seen them. Toupees are still around though.
Sellers has such a pleased look on his face when dining - if even in a child’s chair. Classic !!
That is a awesome movie due to that fact you can’t stop laughing. I have the DVD and I can say I have no problem watching it again. It is soooo 60’s and the great Peter Seller, he was just amazing hilarious. There are so many scenes that are my favorite.
1) The Dinner scene where the chicken landed on top of the woman hair looking like a tiara.
2) The Drunk Waiter
3) The elephant in the house
4) The house gets filled up with soap foam.
Just never ends.
Also it was so 60;s not just the deco but the song like the song that Claudette Longett (Andy Williams former wife).
Also this movie pokes at the Hollywood Industry.
You mean Claudine Longet
I had the biggest crush on her after that movie came out. So sweet. Epitome of “pretty.”
One Peter Sellers movie that is under the radar, not a comedy, but really shows his ability to act, is Hoffman (1971). It is about a man who is terribly socially isolated from others, who blackmails a woman who works in his office to stay with him for two weeks, while he behaves as a gentleman. She is rather appalled with him, and is very distrustful of his motives, of course.
And when he tries very hard to be gentlemanly, he invariably fouls up, at the moment she had started to warm to him.
The movie itself is rather deep, and except at the beginning and end, pretty well limited to just the two of them.
Sounds interesting. Never heard of it. I’ll look out for it.
My favorite non-Blake Edwards Peter Sellers film is “After The Fox”(1966) where he plays a thief pretending to be a Federico Felini-type director in order to pull off a gold heist. It’s hilarious.
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