In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “The more I think about it, the more I dislike The Party.”
“You were saying something about a saying.”
There are certain movies that when you say you’ve never seen them, other people act so amazed and surprised, you’d think you’d just told them you’re a holocaust and evolution denier who thinks Elvis is still alive. I’m guilty of this too. Recently I was blown away when a 24 year old told me she’d never seen The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And here’s a movie that seems to come up surprisingly often, and one that people are always amazed at when I say I’ve never seen it. The Peter Sellers slapstickfest, The Party.
As Hrundi V Bakshi, Sellers is an Indian actor, on the set of some variety of Hollywood epic. Within the first five minutes of The Party, he has managed to ruin three scenes of the movie, including a once only chance to film a huge explosion. While his ineptitude gets him fired, a misunderstanding means it also gets him invited to an exclusive party at the home of the studio head. (more…)
In a nutshell, Bored and Dangerous says: “Is it as simple as people in the 70s thought it was funny to say that Chinese and Japanese people all looked the same? Because as terrible as it is, that’s the only ‘joke’ I can see the movie attempting with these characters.”
“He gives us meaningless clues to confuse us, dangles red herrings before our eyes, bedazzles us with bizarre banalities, while all the time precious seconds are ticking away towards a truly terrible murder still to come.”
The murder mystery is a very unique TV and movie genre. It’s been a standard on big and small screens as long as they’ve existed, while almost always being regarded as low rent, schlock, cheap entertainment. Detective stories and murder mysteries are rarely seen as prestigious, yet they’re obviously crowd pleasers. For every high end hit like the current BBC, Benedict Cumberbatch incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, there are half a dozen low budget, long running detective series that your mum loves, but you’d never waste your time on. It’s a genre I assume I don’t I like, but when I think about it, I realise that there are plenty of examples that have thoroughly entertained me. It’s also a genre that when I found out there was a star studded parody made in the 70s, I knew I had to see Murder By Death.
At the invitation of eccentric millionaire Lionel Twain (Truman Capote), the world’s foremost detectives descend on his creaky mansion on a dark and stormy night. There’s the Miss Marple like Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester). The Bogart style gumshoe, Sam Diamond (Peter Falk). The offensive Chinese stereotype and Charlie Chan facsimile Sydney Wang (Peter Sellers). Hercule Poroit clone, Milo Perrier (James Coco). And crime solving, posh couple, Dick (David Niven) and Dora (Maggie Smith) Charleston. (more…)
“If someone has been murdered here, please let it be Clouseau.”
It’s very rare that sequel has a better reputation than the original. The Empire Strikes Back is pretty universally thought of as better than Star Wars, and there’s an argument to be made that The Godfather Part IIsomehow managed to improve on its masterpiece level predecessor. Another sequel that I have consistently heard is better than its series opener is A Shot in the Dark. Which is good, because to say I was underwhelmed by said predecessor, The Pink Panther, would be an understatement.
A gunshot is heard coming from inside a mansion, inside, the maid (Elke Sommer as Maria) is found next to the body, with the smoking gun in her hand. French Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is called in to investigate. Immediately smitten with Maria, Clouseau refuses to believe she could be guilty of murder and has her released. Over the course of the next 100 or so minutes, this loop will revolve several times. A dead body is found, Maria is right there, with the murder weapon in her hand, and Clouseau lets her go. (more…)
“The American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies was selected by AFI’s blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community to commemorate 100 Years of Movies”. Every weekend(ish) during 2015, I’ll review two(ish), counting them down from 100 to 1.
“Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American People than with your image in the history books.”
Stanley Kubrick was film making genius. But as several past reviews have noted, I’m not a big fan of Stanley Kubrick. I can recognise his brilliance, while finding a lot of what he does too showy, cold and generally more interested in showing off than telling a story. A Clockwork Orange is all style and no substance, and one of the downsides of this AFI Top 100 countdown is that it means I will have to endure 2001: A Space Odyssey again at some time in the near future. But there’s one movie in Kubrick’s filmography that even I think more than lives up to its classic status. That movie is the gloriously titled Dr Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
It’s the height of the Cold War, and while his squadron of bombers are in the air on a training exercise, but none the less loaded to the hilt with nukes, Brig. Gen. Jack D Ripper (Sterling Hayden) uses a military loophole to order them to attack Russia. With their radios turned to a secure frequency, the only thing that will bring the pilots back is a secret code. A secret known only by Ripper. When a visiting English officer, Peter Sellers as Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake, tries to get the codes from Ripper, he realises that Ripper has gone completely insane. Soon, the soldiers on base are fighting off allied Americans who they believe are undercover Soviets (more…)
“I’ve never really known another man like him. He can keep ten girls in the air at once and make each one happy.”
I don’t get Peter Sellers. I know that’s not supposed to be the reaction of an average comedy and movie loving human being, but I just don’t. Sure, his performance as not one, but three hilarious characters in Stanley Kubrick’sDr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying Worrying and Love the Bomb is unimpeachable. But when I watched The Party, widely regarded as one of his best, I found Sellers way more aggravating than funny. And even amongst the mediocrity of the 60s Casino Royale, he couldn’t manage to shine through. But I knew I couldn’t trust my opinion of Sellers without seeing an entry or two into his trademark, career defining series. So I finally watched The Pink Panther.
The child Princess Dala receives the world’s largest diamond, the Pink Panther, as a gift. Years later, the adult Dala (Claudia Caradine) is on holiday at a ski resort with British playboy, Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven). Unbeknownst to Dala, Lytton is legendary cat burglar The Phantom, and he has his eye on the Pink Panther. Also at the resort is Robert Wagner as Lytton’s nephew, George. He has no idea about is uncle’s alter ego as The Phantom, but burglary must run in the family, because George has his sights set on the diamond as well. (more…)
“Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th’ ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!”
Sometimes I have no idea what make leads me to watching a movie. Here’s a movie where I had no idea who was in it, no idea who wrote it, no idea who directed it and no idea what it was about. Even the title is pretty generic and could be almost anything. Buggers me how I even came to have a copy of it. However it happened, I saw Being There, and I’m pretty glad that I did.
Chance (Peter Sellers) is a sheltered, naïve man child. I guess if the movie was being more overt, it would declare he has some form of autism or Asperger’s, but Being There isn’t that kind of movie. The live in gardener for a mansion owned by the ‘Old Man’, Chance only ever has contact with his employer and the resident maid. When the Old Man dies, Chance is forced into the streets of Washington DC, into the real world, seemingly for the first time ever. (more…)
“You can’t shoot me! I have a very low threshold of death. My doctor says I can’t have bullets enter my body at any time”.
When I decided I was going to do a James Bond theme week, there was one movie that intrigued me the most, one that I was most interested in seeing. Not because it has a reputation as being the best, but because it’s the black sheep, the red headed step child, the most often dismissed of the series. I don’t know if it’s even officially a part of the James Bond series. But from all reports, it’s the weirdest, silliest, and possibly worst entry in the franchise. It’s Casino Royale. Not the new millennium Daniel Craig Casino Royale that made the series more culturally relevant than it had been in decades. But the 60s Casino Royale that is, well, I’m not sure what it is.
David Niven is Sir James Bond, a long retired spy with no interest in abandoning that retirement. But when the heads of MI6, the CIA and the KGB realise they’re losing too many spies to sexcapades and general promiscuity, they beg the chaste Bond to return to the field. You see, in this version, James Bond is a prude. That’s a joke, ‘coz in the other Bond movies, he’s always on the job. Get it? Anywho, he’s eventually convinced to get back into the spy game and has so much success, he’s made head of MI6. His first decree as boss is to name all agents James Bond 007, and train them to resist the feminine wiles of the dolly birds they will inevitably face in the field. (more…)
There are certain movies that when you say you’ve never seen them, other people act so amazed and surprised, you’d think you’d just told them you’re a holocaust and evolution denier who thinks Elvis is still alive. I’m guilty of this too. Recently I was blown away when a 24 year old told me she’d never seen The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And here’s a movie that seems to come up surprisingly often, and one that people are always amazed at when I say I’ve never seen it. The Peter Sellers slapstickfest, The Party.
As Hrundi V Bakshi, Sellers is an Indian actor, on the set of some variety of Hollywood epic. Within the first five minutes of The Party, he has managed to ruin three scenes of the movie, including a once only chance to film a huge explosion. While his ineptitude gets him fired, a misunderstanding means it also gets him invited to an exclusive party at the home of the studio head.
Once at the party, the remainder of the film’s running time is dedicated to one sketch, slap stick showpiece, recurring gag and general example of mad cappery after another. If you’re not big on physical comedy, sight gags and suspending massive amounts of disbelief in service of a joke, The Party really is not the movie for you.
Or maybe, if you are into physical comedy, sight gags and suspending massive amounts of disbelief in service of a joke, The Party really is not the movie for you. Because generally, I love that stuff, but I found this movie got real old, real quick. Maybe I need to have a better appreciation for Sellers than I do to really get this. I know it’s a blind spot of mine that needs to be filled. I think until now, the only other Sellers movie I’ve ever seen is Dr Strangelove. Whatever the reason, I found the character of Hrundi V Bakshi pretty irritating, and not in a funny way. The increasingly soused waiter on the other hand? He made me laugh every time he appeared.
In true farcical slapstick style, the more Bakshi tries to fix each small problem, the more bigger ones he creates. I guess I would have found this funnier if I was on board with the small, instigating problems. But because I already disliked his character, the bigger the problems, the more I disliked him. And the other characters that manage to wrestle away the odd moments of spotlight away from Sellers are just as annoying, one note and boring.
The Party is a classic. Too many people who know their stuff hold that opinion for me to say otherwise. But just because I recognise its status as a classic, doesn’t mean I have to like it. I‘ve seen it, I can tick it off the list of movies I should see, and I can move on, never to watch The Party again. Now I have to wonder though, can I move past it enough to fill another blind spot and dive into the Pink Panther series?
Wow, when I watched the movie, I thought it was simply a disappointment compared to all the praise, but still kind of OK. But the more I write and think about it, the more I dislike The Party. I’d better stop now before I decide it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
Bored and Dangerous 