Sellers, Edwards team on only non-‘Pink Panther’ comedy

THE PARTY (1968)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

Four years after director Blake Edwards and actor Peter Sellers finished their second Inspector Clouseau film, the two teamed again in 1968 for one of the most unconventional screen comedies ever made.

“The Party” is rarely mentioned when people talk about Edward’s long list of memorable film comedies that include “The Pink Panther” series, “Victor/Victoria” and “10.” And Sellers’ fans seem to forget “The Party” and usually focus on the “Pink Panther” films.

But with “The Party,” Sellers and Edwards prove they had more talent than people ever imagined. This hilarious, fish-out-of-water comedy is droll, off-beat, filled with great sight gags and uncontrollably hilarious.

Sellers stars as Hrundi V. Bakshi, an unknown Indian actor who has a small role in a big-budget epic motion picture. Despite his repeated clumsiness, Bakshi accidentally gets himself invited to a lavish Hollywood dinner party.

‘West Side Story’ tops my list of Top Five Best Screen Musicals

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

BROADWAY: HOME OF THE STAGE MUSICAL

Earlier this month, I wrote about two recent American film musicals I love: Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe” featuring Beatles songs and Tim Burton’s adaptation of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

Musicals are a home-grown escapist entertainment – an important part of American popular culture that was born on the Broadway stage and later successfully moved to the big screen.

The genre demands a willing suspension of disbelief and your complete acceptance that characters at any moment will break out in spontaneous song and dance accompanied by an unseen, full-blown orchestra. If you do, if you wholeheartedly accept the basic conventions of a musical, you can often find yourself swept away.

While I have seen great film musicals in recent years, including versions of such stage hits as “Evita,” “The Producers” and “Hairspray,” the heyday of the genre was in the 1950s and early 1960s when a rich stable of long-running Broadway productions graced the screen.

Today, in honor of one of my favorite film genres, I open “Top Five Week” at Sneak Prevue with my picks for the top five film musicals. I will share other Top Five picks in other genres Monday through Thursday of this week – so don’t forget to bookmark this site and visit often.

A timeless classic of French cinema: ‘King of Hearts’

KING OF HEARTS (1968)

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

In the darkened auditorium of New Orleans’ only art house theater, I saw my first foreign language film – a wonderful, timeless French fable that opened my eyes to world cinema.

The year was 1975. The movie was Philippe De Broca’s 1966 film “King of Hearts,” a comedy-drama set in World War I France and starring Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier chosen to enter a small French town to defuse a German bomb.

As the local residents flee the town, the patients of an insane asylum escape the hospital and cheerfully take over the entire city oblivious to what is happening or to the ongoing war. They also thoroughly confuse Bates, whom they believe is the “King of Hearts.”

De Broca’s film has a simple and obvious message: Who is more insane – the folks who live in the asylum or the soldiers who wage war. The film’s joys come from watching De Broca and his talented cast work their magic, using sympathetic characters and poignant humor to drag you deeper into the story.

Italian director Sergio Leone helms big screen’s best Western

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)
ITALIAN MOVIE POSTER

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

From the brilliant 20-minute showdown at a train station depicted with almost no dialog to the pitch-perfect performances throughout, “Once Upon a Time in the West” is unlike any other Western ever made.

It’s also the greatest, the product of Italian director Sergio Leone – who had just completed the Clint Eastwood Western trilogy of a “Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good the Bad and the Ugly.”

Leone’s films are distinctively different from Westerns made by American film makers.

While Leone had an obvious love for the genre and was heavily influenced by such classics as “3:10 to Yuma,” “High Noon” and “The Searchers,” his films were nevertheless distinctively different.

For starters, they technically were Italian films, Spaghetti Westerns, filmed and financed on location in Europe with a European crew. The Eastwood trilogy was shot in Italian and dubbed in English for American release; Eastwood was one of the few actors to say his lines in English.