In The Party (1968), Peter Sellers played Hrundi V. Bakshi, a well-meaning Indian actor who is mistakenly invited to a lavish Hollywood party and proceeds, entirely by accident, to dismantle it. Directed by Blake Edwards, the film is built almost entirely on Sellers’ comic timing, with long stretches of near-silent physical comedy.
Bakshi is polite, earnest and out of place, and Sellers plays him with a gentleness that keeps the comedy from turning cruel. The party itself becomes a character, as one small mishap leads to another, until the whole evening collapses into chaos and, finally, a kind of joy. It is a role that shows Sellers at his most purely physical, proving that he did not need a disguise or a voice to hold an audience, only a situation and a straight face.