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One of the most surprising and gratifying movie screenings I experienced in recent years was The Pink Panther (1963) in full Technirama at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival. I had seen the film many times on television, and I thought I knew all of the funniest bits, but watching it on a big screen was a revelation.
Blake Edwards’s expert direction amplified those subtle comedy bits that were dependent on offscreen action, screen direction, exquisite timing and precise compositions in long shot. The impact of these techniques is not nearly as effective on television, or, heaven forbid, computers. The best example occurs near the end of the film after several characters in gorilla suits leave a costume party then jump in tiny cars to chase each other. A local resident watches dead pan as a gorilla drives a car across the street in front of him and exits screen right just as another gorilla in another tiny car follows. Filmed primarily in long shots with minimal editing, the sequence is funny because we have time to take in the absurdity of a gorilla driving a car, just like the local who has been carefully positioned in center frame.
Though Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau is the character most closely associated with The Pink Panther, he is actually the costar. David Niven, Capucine and Claudia Cardinale were the main stars and gave the film its international intrigue and romance. Sellers provided the farce, a type of comedy that was Edwards’s forte. Peter Ustinov was originally signed to play Clouseau, but he dropped out just before shooting. Sellers was hired after most of the pre-production had been completed, and according to Edwards in an interview, he and the mercurial comic actor hashed out his version of the character in the car from the airport after the director picked him up. New scenes were devised, and Sellers was encouraged to improvise within Edwards’s controlled set pieces. Many of his scenes unfold in long shot as classic bits of farce in which one character exits out of frame and another stumbles in.
I recently caught A Shot in the Dark (1964), Edwards’s quick follow-up to The Pink Panther. Clouseau is now the primary character, and Sellers is the star. Consequently, many of his encounters are depicted in medium shots, and, as the star, he is afforded more close-ups. However, the farcical scenes are still presented in long shots. Edwards excelled at bedroom farce, sometimes called door farce, in which the point is sexual escapades. In a bedroom farce, a romantic encounter is set in a room or a building with several doors and windows leading to bedrooms. Much of the humor comes from one character entering through a door or window just as another character exits through the opposite door or window. Hence, the name “door farce.” Because of the perfectly timed visual interplay, long shots in long take are generally more effective than cutting to each character as they enter and exit.
Edwards and Sellers would go on to make three more Pink Panther films. The Party (1968), which is currently streaming on FilmStruck, was the only collaboration between Sellers and Edwards that was not a Pink Panther film. In The Party, Sellers plays Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi who is imported to Hollywood to play a role in a Gunga Din-like action film. Through a mix-up, he is invited to a lavish party thrown by the head of the studio at his ultra-modern home. The premise is less of a plot and more of a set-up for Sellers’s strengths as a comic actor. As the hapless foreigner, he is not only vexed by the strange interior design of the house with its indoor ponds and remote-controlled fireplaces but also at odds with the Hollywood types who populate the party. We appropriate his outsider perspective as he wonders through the ridiculous house and mingles with the absurd party-goers. Part of the comedy is a spoof of Hollywood, c. 1968. Edwards would continue to bite the hand that fed him in other spoofs or exposés of show business, including S.O.B (1981) and Sunset (1988).
The Party, which flopped at the time of release, is one of those films that inspires either avid followers or diehard detractors. As a fan of Edwards’s work, even his unsuccessful efforts, I guess I am in the former camp. Edwards’s direction is at its most formal in The Party as he uses widescreen frames to track with Hrundi as he wanders from one group to another, disrupting conversations or creating havoc. Sellers was again encouraged to improvise, especially with props. Edwards captures Hrundi in long shot encountering broken toilets, pet birds and automated furniture. There is very little dialogue, and some of the comedy consists of perfectly timed trajectory gags in which one gag sets off a chain reaction leading to the next and to the next. Two influences on The Party are apparent—silent comedy and Jacques Tati, especially Mon Oncle (1958). Edwards’s style is the opposite of many of today’s comedies in which directors do not seem to understand the connection between humor and filmmaking techniques. Instead, contemporary comedies subject audiences to comic actors standing center frame in static medium shots running off at the mouth until all energy and humor are drained from the scene.
My favorite Hollywood type spoofed in The Party is a western movie star played by Denny Miller, a rhinestone cowboy in a Nudie Cohen-style suit with his name written in gemstones on his back. He towers over Hrundi, greeting him with “Howdy Partner,” mispronouncing his name and calling him “Injun” because Hrundi told him he was Indian. Though Hrundi creates havoc as a fish out of water, these waters are strange ones indeed. In the end, his character proves to be the most stable and sympathetic, signified by the fact that he wins the heart of the girl, played by Claudine Longet.
However, those type of jokes points out the elephant in the room—the fact that Sellers is portraying an Indian, or, playing brownface as some call it. Anyone intrigued enough to watch The Party should be aware of this unfortunate convention that, while accepted at the time, is not acceptable. Sellers’s stock in trade was his ability to inhabit his exaggerated but well-rounded characters using costuming, gesture and accent to complete the comic portrait, whether it is Hrundi V. Bakshi or Henry Orient or Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Hrundi was just another mask that Sellers slipped into for The Party, but it is a mask that carries a lot of cultural baggage.
Susan Doll
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