The Party (1968) 99 Minutes

After taking the week off for Thanksgiving, Movienight returned for Netti’s

follow up to his controversial Halloween Cycle Selection ‘Night of the Demon.’

Netti’s Pick, ‘The Party,’ echoes back to the very earliest days of Movienight.

After 7 Official Picks, the notoriously unavailable Mr. Wiener finally stepped up

to the SELECTOR position in November of 2005. His Pick, ‘Papillon,’ pushed

the boundaries of our By-Laws with its length, and was the first of two Picks

to provoke a ban on prison movies for a full year. After the film ended, and

Wiener woke MOFO and Tooda up, he informed the Crew that his Back Up Pick that night was the one and only ‘The Party.’ And so it was, two Novembers later, that Netti finally brought this Pick to the Crew.

It was hoped that Jaja and her beau would join us for the Pick, but she was unable to make it on time, absent as well was our host Nubs for all but the end of the film, and Buffy missed once again as she was performing in Los Feliz. The Back Yard was still pretty packed as the Car Pool brought Bourbon Cookie, Tooda, Netti, Pat Towne, and WildCard Slim. Mr. Wiener joined us as well and his etiquette throughout this Pick was exceptional.

Peter Sellers returns to Movienight with this Pick, his first appearance came in Tooda’s ‘Dr. Strangelove.’ The 70’s Icon, director Blake Edwards, makes his debut here as does his longtime collaborator composer Henry Mancini.

Next week marks the return of WildCard Slim to SELECTOR status, and the Crew awaits his follow-up to the one truly scary film from our Horror Cycle - ‘The Descent.’

UPDATED:

Mr. Wiener has correctly pointed out that ‘Papillon’ was not in violation of our By-Laws vis a vis its length, as our By-Laws were not formally codified until March 5, 2006.

“Birdie Num Num”

Written by: Blake Edwards and Tom Waldman & Frank Waldman

Directed by: Blake Edwards

BBD Comments:

Man, did I hate ‘Night of the Demon!’

But the bad taste of that Pick is completely washed away by this pitch perfect Selection by Mr. Simonetti. In my Comments on ‘Papillon’ years ago, I took Wiener to task for bringing such a dour film when he had this one in his back pocket the whole time. I thought then how wonderful it would be to share this Edwards/Sellers classic with the Crew. And let’s be honest - as a Pick - ‘The Party’ is wonderful.

This is a such a visual film. The comedy burns slowly, and as only Sellers can deliver, it seems constantly rooted in a purposeful intention. The best such example is the twenty minute effort to reclaim his shoe. I can’t imagine that any of that appeared in the script. It was the splendid combination of a robustly engineered set, carefully timed cuts, beautifully framed photography and the unmitigated mastery of Sellers’ performance that elevate the sequence. He remains so earnest in his various quests that Sellers seems to do what no one before or since has accomplished. He is at once the straight man and the comic foil. I am always just awestruck by his work.

As for Netti’s work, I have been very hard on him of late. The one-two punch of ‘Cría De Crappo’ and ‘Night of the Demon’ left me wondering if Netti had some disdain for Movienight that he was signaling with his very un-Movienight Selections. I half expected him to show up tonight with ‘Wings of Desire’ so the Crew would have an opportunity to re-evaluate its merit as a Selection. Netti is an iconoclast, and in my heart I know that he was never assaulting Movienight with his Picks, he was merely overestimating the mood of his audience (much as I did with ‘The Sea Inside.’) Now that he has brought an unmitigated Slam Dunk to the Back Yard, I don’t want to say “I told you so...,” or “Thank God, you’ve come to your senses...” because ‘The Party’ falls in line completely with Netti’s Selection history. This Pick is neither a course-correction for Netti nor is it an olive branch for past Pick short falls. What it is, in my mind, is a return to top form for one of our most unpredictable Selectors.

Thank you Netti for always challenging us. Thanks as well for knocking my socks off. It was a hell of a Pick.

Onwards.

Brandon Comments:

Everyone needs a good, hearty laugh at least three times a month, and I am about a year behind. 2005 was my last good one, when someone stepped in shit and tracked it across the carpet of a friend’s house. I laughed until I cried, then I pointed at the son of a bitch that did it and laughed some more. But the funny bone has been dry since then.

But then something wonderful happened, and that something wonderful was Netti’s Selection of ‘The Party.’ Five minutes into this classic comedy and I was laughing so hard I was crying. My shirt cuffs were wet from drying my eyes every 30 seconds. And of all the great scenes that come to mind, the one that really blows me away is the long camera pan across the dinner table when everyone first sits down. Everyone has a role to play in this scene, and it's all so perfect. Never before had I realized how much like a stage play this film really is until seeing that particular scene. What a pick!

Netti, I don’t know what possessed you to choose this film, but I am so glad you did. It doesn’t follow on the heels of either ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘2001,’ but with the Thanksgiving break giving you some wiggle room to play around with, I’m glad you came up with ‘The Party.’ With your French accent and tea maker before the film, I thought we’d be watching a Japanese movie about sunsets which was directed by a Frenchman, or a French film about death with a Japanese actor. And then the French accent and tea made sense upon seeing Peter Sellers in brown-face.

It’ll be hard to follow this one. Birdie num-num.

SELECTOR Comments:

I was happy to choose ‘The Party,’ knowing that the group was most likely to be in a jovial mood after a nice holiday. I love this movie. Peter Sellers was a gifted comedian. I remember mourning his death even at the age of 6, as I was a big fan of Inspector Clouseau. I could have chosen another film. There was a particular follow-up to ‘2001’ that I think would have been a tour-de-force that I chose not to go with. Often I hear the word 'salon' bandied about as an alternate appellation for Movienight. A salon would invite challenge more than occasionally. A salon would seek out barriers and break them. Rather, I find that there is a self-affirmative quality to our Selections that wants and reveres our own smoke and booze filled placentas and all that would serve to keep us there. The hard thwacks against an edgy Selection are far more interesting to me than the soporific salutes to an oft loved and viewed film. I will continue to try and find those films which both entertain and provoke. ‘The Party,’ I knew would Slam Dunk us straight into our amniotic fluid. And apparently, rightly so.

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