Amazon.co.uk Review
Though this film is a relatively minor one in the massive canon of Peter Sellers, it has moments of absolute hilarity. Written and directed by Blake Edwards, one of Sellers' most fertile collaborators, the film stars Sellers as a would-be actor from India (let them try to get away with that today) who is a walking disaster area. After ruining a day's shooting as an extra on a film, he finds himself unintentionally invited to a big Hollywood party. That's pretty much it as far as plot goes, but Edwards and Sellers know how to milk a simple idea for an unending string of slapstick gags. The result is a film that is episodic and sketchy but also frequently loony in an inspired way.
--Marshall Fine
Synopsis
In one of their few non-Clouseau efforts, Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers preserve the spirit of the French bumbler in the person of Hrundi V. Bakshi, an accident-prone Indian actor. Brought to Hollywood to play the title role in SON OF GUNGA DIN, Bakshi destroys the film's most elaborate set with his bungling and is banned from the set by Edward Clutterbuck (J. Edward McKinley), the film's producer. But because of an error by the producer's secretary, Bakshi's name is added to the guest list of his next party, an A-list affair. Shortly after arriving, Bakshi begins accidentally dismantling Clutterbuck's carefully staged event, destroying a flower bed, knocking a servant through a bay window, and triggering the lawn sprinklers, soaking the producer's pretentious guests. When the producer's daughter, Molly (Kathe Green), and a group of her friends arrive with a Day-Glo-painted elephant, Baskhi is shocked by the sacrilege and insists on washing the pachyderm in one of the house's indoor pools. As the other guests begin to join in the fun, pandemonium erupts. Sellers is typically brilliant in a film abounding in sidesplitting sight gags.