The Return of the Pink Panther

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

Runtime: 113 minutes

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Starring: Peter Sellers, the usual co-stars in this franchise, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell, Peter Arne

From: United Artists

Yes, this is the direction I’ll be going the next few days. As explained in recent reviews, HDNet Movies showed The Pink Panther and this back to back, which were DVR’ed by me. As Prime had A Shot in the Dark for free AND HDNet also showed The Pink Panther Strike Back then Revenge of the Pink Panther on another night, there is no excuse for me not to see the franchise, and all in a row. Note that the journey for certain won’t go past Curse; I’m sure I’ll be crying “uncle” by that point anyhow.

Thankfully, this return of the franchise (after both director and star had poor luck in the preceding few years, the latter due to his “difficult” reputation) was still a hit with me. The titular Pink Panther diamond is stolen again; Sir Charles has returned, this time with a new lady and this time played by Christopher Plummer instead of David Niven.

Time is spent in a fictional Arabic country-filmed in Morocco-and Switzerland as not only is there the usual hijinks and ballyhoo surrounding Clouseau as an agent of chaos, there is an actual serious storyline involving a key supporting character which has a dark running gag but otherwise is mostly played straight. This blend works quite well; personally, as funny as Clouseau is and his buffoonery is involved with some ace setpieces, too much of it would probably be exhausting.

As there are also great non-sequitor gags, a nice score and the deteriorating mental condition of Dreyfus, it now makes sense why someone I know say this is their favorite of the series. The relationship between Edwards and Sellers was hot and cold; despite that, the latter as Clouseau has always entertained me so far. I did skip past Alan Arkin as Inspector Clouseau in the eponymous film for a reason. Now, I feel like a real nincompoop for waiting so long to experience the joy of seeing Clouseau bumbling his way until the cases are solv-ved.