The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

I have been watching the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films in order recently. I didn't really enjoy the first Pink Panther that much, but I did have a lot of fun with A Shot in the Dark. This third entry, Return of the Pink Panther, was decently amusing, though not as enjoyable as A Shot in the Dark. This film has some funny gags and Peter Sellers does physical comedy with the best of them. He also turns up the outrageous french accent to deliver some hilarious lines. However, the slapstick is also turned up to more ridiculous levels, which I felt didn't work as well as it did in A Shot in the Dark. Overall, this is a decent slapstick comedy that should provide some laughs.6/10************SPOILERS************Recommended for those that enjoy cartoon intros, clumsy french policemen, outrageous accents, mispronunciations of the word "Monkey", breaking things, spilling things, ripping things, blowing up things, suctioning things, tripping over things, falling off of things, falling into things, getting stuck to things, personal stealth karate- boy personal trainers, eye twitching, defective home furnishings, racially inappropriate language......but that's just like, my opinion, man# Of Times Watched: Once

Peter Sellers returns as Inspector Clouseau after an 11 year absence, in this amusing sequel which finds the Pink Panther diamond being stolen again, and Clouseau is convinced that suspected jewel thief the Phantom is behind it, which means Sir Charles Litton(Christopher Plummer taking over from David Niven) is the prime suspect, along with his beautiful wife(played by Catherine Schell, though oddly, despite the end of the original film, doesn't seem to be Clouseau's ex-wife?) Herbert Lom again plays Dreyfeuss, and is portrayed as being on the verge of insanity. Burt Kwouk plays Cato, still trying to combat his employer Clouseau! Funny film has lots of inspired scenes, as Clouseau's disguises start to become elaborate. Leads directly into "...Strikes Again!"

Return of the Pink Panther (1975)Complete with the great Mancini sax theme, the nutty smart Blake Edwards directing, the sassy cartoon panther himself, and of course Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau (taking on many absurd disguises). This is the third of the original Pink Panther movies series (omitting the oddball fourth one from 1968 that didn't have Mancini, Sellers, or Edwards), and it comes over a decade after the first two. Was the public interested? Yes--it did well. It was a great formula. Is it still a good formula in 2012?Good question. It depends on your taste. But surely the names repeated above are all cinema greats that, like Chaplin, rise above their time. But of course, Sellers, as terrific as he was, was no Charles Chaplin. At his best, the comedy is hilarious. And that makes the movie worth watching for sure. But he is sometimes a bit off in his timing, or is stuck playing a stunt that isn't worthy of him. There's also a lag in the filler material, the scenes between the great stuff. Some marginal characters (including the leading woman, who is totally a late 60s type, not a 1975 type, and she feels oddly unnecessary) don't command their parts, or their scenes. The drift begins to drift. And then you realize there isn't much of a plot. The whole recovery (sort of) of the famous Pink Panther diamond after an elaborate theft isn't really the driving force of the movie. What takes its place is a slow interplay of the characters all stumbling over each other trying to trick the perpetrator into revealing the gem. So then you are back to the stumbling as comedy, and sometimes it's great. There are so many ridiculous moments with Sellers being a bumbling fool like no one, you are sure to laugh. And that's what you're here for. "The Pink Panther" is the original, and at times also a bit sluggish, but it's the first. And "A Shot in the Dark" is the best of the three, I think. But if you like them, you'll be just fine here. If you haven't seen any, you might go in order, since the sets and music are really spot on in the first two, and a bit more transporting. There is something a little off kilter here that make it an awkward, but decent, third.

This is perhaps the best of the Pink Panther series of films ever made as Peter Sellers reprised the role of the bungling french detective of the Surette after an absence of ten years and surely was the beginning of what should have been the somewhat short-lived and fully fledged versions of these movies while the earlier two films to feature Sellers' as Clouseau, weren't all that funny. Christopher Plummer was an excellent choice as a replacement for David Niven as Charles Litton having already starred in major films like The Sound of Music although Niven reprised the role in the first posthumous "pink" movie. Blake Edwards over-directed this one and there are lots of slow motion gags throughout the film's length and is helped by some of the usually funny dialogues and disaster after disaster for the Frenchman. It is a great shame that these were cut short by the premature death of Sellers and despite his comic abilities and ideas, it became a different matter off-screen.