Film Review
The first film in
The Pink Panther
series is one of the best, mainly because it avoids the cheap comedic
excesses of subsequent entries in the series and has a fairly well
structured plot. Director Blake Edwards originally intended that
this would be a straightforward comedy caper movie, an opportunity for
David Niven to reprise the gentleman burglar role that he had
previously played in Sam Wood's
Raffles (1939). Things
turned out somewhat differently when it became glaringly obvious that Peter Sellers was the
film's comedy focus and stole the show with graceless ease from its
principal star. Although Sellars plays a secondary part in
the plot, he dominates the film from start to finish and is tirelessly
funny as the accident prone Inspector Closseau, his best-known comedy
creation.
The film's success was squarely attributed to Peter Sellers, so it was
not long before he returned as the bungling Inspector Clouseau in the
first (and best) of the sequels,
A
Shot in the Dark (1964). The Pink Panther character which
features in the opening titles would himself become the star of his own
series,
The Pink Panther Show,
a series of animated shorts which ran throughout the 1970s, using the
familiar Pink Panther theme which Henry Mancini composed for the
original film and which picked up the film's only Oscar nomination.
At times,
The Pink Panther
does feel like an uncomfortable amalgam of two very different kinds of
film, a restrained drawing room comedy and an unbridled Marx
Brothers-style farce, but this perhaps adds to its charm and makes it
fresher, less formulaic than the subsequent films in the series.
After a series of protracted comedy situations of the French bedroom
farce variety, the pace soon picks up and the film builds to a highly
amusing crescendo as Clouseau goes in pursuit of Niven and Robert
Wagner (dressed in gorilla costumes) at a fancy dress ball. The
latter ends with a crazy chase that might have been choreographed by
Mack Sennett himself and which can hardly fail to reduce all but the
most phlegmatic of spectators to hysterics. Not the most
sophisticated thing that Blake Edwards directed, but it is a lot of
fun.
© James Travers 2011
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
For the past 15 years, Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the
Sûreté has been on the trail of a notorious jewel thief,
The Phantom, and is blissfully unaware that the man he is after is the
elegant British playboy Sir Charles Lytton. The latter is
planning the coup of his career, the theft of a priceless diamond known
as the Pink Panther, which is currently in the possession of Indian
princess Dala. Whilst holidaying at a skiing resort, Lytton
makes the princess's acquaintance, but also encounters Clouseau, whose
wife he has been secretly having an affair with. The arrival of
Lytton's wayward nephew George complicates matters further, but Lytton
is still determined to go-ahead with his robbery. Little does he
know that the Princess Dala is one step ahead of him and intends to use
Lytton's robbery as a cover for her own nefarious scheme.
Fortunately for Lytton, Clouseau is there to save the day...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.