Trail of the Pink Panther

Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Starring: Stock footage of Peter Sellers, returning regulars, returning names from way back when, Joanna Lumley, Richard Mulligan

From: United Artists

As infamous as this film is, it does give me plenty to discuss. A LOT could be written concerning why Trail happened in the first place despite Inspector Clouseau himself having passed away two years before release. Without the foreknowledge of the history behind the film, you’d think that director Blake Edwards looks pretty bad for dedicating the film to the late Peter Sellers then using deleted footage to try and earn a buck using his name. 

However, United Artists wanted another Pink Panther film and in fact wanted Dudley Moore to play Clouseau instead; both Moore and Edwards balked at that. There’s more that you can read on Wiki if that’s your inclination; the last wife of Sellers sued because Peter never wanted deleted footage to be used during his lifetime, this was shot concurrently w/ Curse and it was a troubled production… no wonder this was a mess, with a variety of different entities giving off a bad look.

The first 40 minutes was the deleted footage of Clouseau blended w/ a standard story of how the Pink Panther diamond was stolen once again, this time in a fashion that would be insultingly simple even if it was not compared w/ the quality heist sequence that opened Return. Despite their best efforts, it was just disjointed & felt like the movie was biding its time until “Clouseau’s plane vanishes;” from this point, reporter Joanna Lumley literally interviews characters from the 60’s Panther movies (David Niven, Capucine, Graham Stark as Hercule Lajoy, who worked w/ Clouseau in A Shot in the Dark) and new characters, such as Clouseau’s father… there was an irritating character I quickly got fed up with.

Robert Loggia returns playing a different gangster character than the one he played in Revenge; that is just one of at least a few puzzling moments throughout Trail. The fact that the movie tells the diamond to f--- off and doesn’t even mention the jewel once the Inspector vanishes is another issue. Worst of all, the movie stops rather than wrap up the plot in a satisfying manner. Curse was a Part 2 to the story but even then, Part 1’s typically feel rewarding while making you want more with the rest of the story. Here, the movie was lackluster even during the few occasions when they showed old Clouseau clips (when I just saw those moments days ago, they did not have any impact in this context) and it did not spurn interest in this tale continuing.

Because I had the time, almost immediately afterwards was Curse of the Pink Panther. That review will come tomorrow night; spoiler: that was NOT a satisfying conclusion to the story that began in Trail of the Pink Panther.