The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers buried the hatchet and returned after more than a decade to make another film in the 'Pink Panther' series, with Sellers once again essaying the inept Inspector Jacques Clouseau. In this one we also see the return of the character Sir Charles Litton, with Christopher Plummer very nicely taking on the role originally filled by David Niven. The plot revolves around the theft of the extremely valuable diamond the Pink Panther by a skilled cat burglar. Clouseau is quickly requested as the man to crack the case.It seems that as the 'Pink Panther' series went on, the comedy became broader and broader, with everything else becoming more and more marginalised. This is certainly true here but it does have to be said that the balance is still good enough. I actually rather liked the crime sub-plot involving the theft and the Littons. This material gave the film a sort of James Bond type of glamour which I felt was an effective counter-point to Seller's bumbling comedy. Sellers is still good, in what amounts to a series of set-pieces which mostly seem to involve ludicrous disguises and slapstick. His performance does however, lack some of the subtle brilliance that he brought to the role in the first two films in the series and the humour overall is noticeably more hit and miss now. He is joined again by two other regulars in Herbert Lom and Burt Kwouk, as respectively Chief Inspector Dreyfuss and Clouseau's martial arts obsessed valet; while it was certainly nice to see them again here, these are pretty one-dimensional characters and their antics get slightly tiresome after a bit. On the whole though, despite a few cracks in the seams, this is definitely a good entry in this series. The balance between comedy and story is sensible and the exotic international flavour adds additional production value.

This is the first Pink Panther sequel I've seen, and is what I think much, much funnier and exciting than the original film. Here, he is on the trail to find the thief that stole the Pink Panther jewel.This film features Clousseau's obsessive boss Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), who absolutely loathes Clousseau, and Cato Fong (Burk Kwok), Clousseau's servant. Both Clousseau and Fong join forces to track down the diamond, resulting in nothing but a fun crime story, adventures and non-stop physical, clumsy comedy. The fight between Clouseau and Cato in the apartment is hilarious and Dreyfus losing his mind due to Clousseau driving him insane is priceless.Overall, a sequel that is surpasses the first Pink Panther film by miles.Grade B+

Where Blake Edwards was once a handler of comedies combining slapstick, sophisticated wit, melancholia and social criticism, which was nearly forgotten by the time he's sold out this far into the eponymous franchise, because this one is just slapstick. Nothing else. He's mostly celebrated as the creator of the Pink Panther series. But this one's problem is how it drags. There isn't any anticipation felt or even created, any comic anguish, that nearly Hitchcockian suspense where time suddenly dilates to allow a burst of laughter.Other than the usual homage to the silent cinema of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Leo McCarey, the Clouseau films seem to reveal preoccupations that come up again and again in Edwards' work. Clouseau is very much a hysterical white male and much of the series' humor comes from the ludicrous gap between his presumptions of cultural superiority and his idiotic behavior. He feels free to treat his Asian manservant Cato brutally, and proclaims his mastery over women, yet he is spectacularly inept at everything he attempts and is constantly humiliated. Clouseau's humiliations are particularly evident in a subtext of the films involving his predominant sexual embarrassment and failure.An elaborately original cartoon throughout the opening credits gets this amusingly distracting movie off to a lighthearted start before the bungling Inspector is asked by an Arab government to help them trace the Pink Panther diamond, which has been stolen from their theoretically impenetrable national museum. Clouseau deems the burglary to be the graft of Sir Charles Litton, a.k.a. The Phantom. To facilitate his own protection, the cunning Litton embarks on his own to recover the offender while his wife Claudine deflects Clouseau.The action is not so much a slapstick aficionado's ice cream castle as a slapstick aficionado's house of Cheetos. Our inelegant star is disengaged by defective vehicles, a telephone, a doorbell, revolving doors, a vacuum cleaner, a lamp, a parrot, and the exceedingly fanatical Cado who is provided with secret hiding places and surprise Kung Fu assaults. The sight gags come on like lightning and frantically, but the story line flies in several directions at once, where the original Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark were methodically clever caper plots constructed out of their slapstick scenarios. Return of the Pink Panther is constructed right in synch with the brain's most rudimentary wavelengths, which is perhaps why it's a good house of Cheetos, a vegging-out flick.

Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards' careers had stalled when the idea to do a new 'Pink Panther' was mooted. The last 'Clouseau' movie had been the ill-fated Alan Arkin version from 1968. It was not any old Clouseau audiences wanted, but Sellers. Both men agreed to put aside their creative differences and restore the original.'Return' begins in Lugash where the fabulous 'Pink Panther' diamond is stolen once more. The only clue is a white glove found at the scene of the crime, embroidered with the letter 'P'. The authorities call on the man who recovered it last time - Clouseau. The passing years have not been kind to our hero - he is pounding the beat as a gendarme. During an argument with a street musician ( John Bluthal ), Clouseau fails to notice a bank robbery is in progress behind his back. Worse, he helps the robbers get away.Chief Comissioner Dreyfus ( Herbert Lom ) is only too happy for Clouseau to go back to Lugash. It would appear that Sir Charles Lytton ( Christopher Plummer ) is up to his old tricks again. Now retired from crime and living in the South of France with his wife Claudine ( Catherine Schell ), he is concerned that someone is imitating him and decides to track down the real culprit...Forget the plot. It is nothing more than an excuse on which to peg the gags, and many are first rate. There are more laughs to be found here than in the original 'Pink Panther' ( which had too much of David Niven for my liking ) and the Arkin 'Clouseau'. I think I'm right in saying this film was the beginning of Clouseau's habit of mangling the French language. Not only do English people not understand him, but other French people do not either. When he asks Victor Spinetti's hotel clerk for a room, the man thinks he is asking for a 'rheum'.In addition to Sellers returning, we also get back Herbert Lom as the harassed 'Dreyfus', whose hatred of the detective is so great he keeps trying to kill him, and Burt Kwouk as 'Cato', the Chinese manservant who is under orders to attack his boss every chance he gets. 'Return' has one of the best Clouseau vs.Cato scenes, ending with the former trying to do a flying kung-fu leap and crashing through a door into his kitchen. Christopher Plummer replaces Niven as 'Sir Charles Lytton'. When we last saw him, he was with Clouseau's wife ( Capucine ). Catherine Schell's character is not the same woman. It would not be until 1981's 'Trail Of The Pink Panther' that the former 'Mrs.Clouseau' would be seen again. Graham Stark is back also, but as seedy crook 'Pepe', who keeps getting his fingers crushed.'Return' was a big success, paving the way for further sequels. It is not included on the box set though, due to it having been made by a different company. It has since been released separately.Funniest moment? For me its the bit where Clouseau enters the hotel, and a man requests politely he hand over his hat, coat and gloves. Thinking him to be a member of staff, the Inspector does this, and then watches dumbfounded as the man casually walks out of the foyer, gets into a car, waves, and drives off!