Don's Party (1976)

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BRUCE BERESFORD'S ''Don's Party,'' an Australian comedy adapted by David Williamson from his well made play, is a well made film that, although it contains some sharp characterizations, a number of funny lines and one uproarious confrontation scene, never disguises its carefully schematized origins.

This is less a criticism than a description of the sort of piece it is. Once you recognize the form - and you do almost immediately - you watch it as you might watch players move around a Monopoly board. They can't be hurried up - there are rules that must be observed, and if you aren't part of the game, time drags. A group of middle-class friends come together one night in October 1969, at the home of Don and Kath Henderson to dine and watch the national election returns on television. They are Mack, who is celebrating his split from his wife, described by someone as ''one of the great bourgeois monsters of all time''; Simon, who manufactures plastic pressings, and his pretty, genteel wife, Jody; Mal, a bitter, former professor of literature, who has sold out to industry and is still broke, and his caustic wife, Jenny; Evan, a humorless, culture-loving dentist, and his beautiful artist-wife, Kerry; and Cooley, a lawyer who is the group's Casanova, and Susan, his uninhibited, 19-year-old girlfriend.

As Kath cooks, makes drinks and acts as harried hostess to what are essentially the friends of Don, a disappointed non-novelist, the evening turns into the expected shambles, though not in entirely expected ways. The fate of the nation quickly takes last place in the interests of the guests, who drink, argue, flirt, drink, eat, make love, get caught, brawl and drink some more - all of which leads to a climax of angry accusations and embarrassing confessions.

Mr. Beresford, who directed this before he made the far more interesting ''Breaker Morant,'' which was also adapted from a stage piece, keeps the action moving smoothly around what would have been the play's single set. The actors are all equally fine, and to cite several without citing all would be a mistake. This is ensemble work of high order.