S.O.B. / The Party

S.O.B., 1981, Warner Bros., 122 min. Dir. Blake Edwards. When director Richard Mulligan's expensive musical turns out to be a flop, he decides to recut it as an erotic epic that will exploit the squeaky-clean image of star Julie Andrews. This hilarious and trenchant satire has echoes of Edwards' own experiences making DARLING LILI, but its comedy reaches beyond mere score-settling to present a mercilessly funny -- and at times surprisingly sweet – poison-pen love letter to the American cinema.

THE PARTY, 1968, MGM Repertory, 99 min. Dir. Blake Edwards. For most of its length, THE PARTY is a wonderfully restrained homage to Jacques Tati, with Peter Sellers in perfect pitch as an awestruck Indian actor who disrupts a chic Hollywood gathering with the help of French songbird Claudine Longet and an elephant. The final 15 minutes prove that any great joke deserves a totally outrageous punchline.