Disc 1: THE PINK PANTHER Disc 2: REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER Disc 3: THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN Disc 4: A SHOT IN THE DARK Disc 5: TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER Disc 6: BONUS DISCCue the Henry Mancini music and watch out for Cato–the gist of the Pink Panther series has been gathered in a six-disc boxed set. At the center of it is Peter Sellers’s incarnation of inspector Jacques Clouseau, a hopelessly bumbling detective with a genius for resting his hands in the wrong place (on the surface of a spinning globe, for instance) and mangling the English language.
Writer-director Blake Edwards cast Peter Ustinov as Clouseau in The Pink Panther, but Ustinov dropped out just before shooting began. Edwards (who recounts this story in a spotty commentary track included here) and Sellers bonded over their affection for Laurel and Hardy, and immediately transformed the character of Clouseau into a walking sight gag. The first film has a delicious swinging sixties vibe, while jewel thief David Niven, Claudia Cardinale, and Capucine occupy as much screen time as Sellers. Sellers really hits his stride in A Shot in the Dark, an elegantly funny tale of Clouseau sleuthing out a murder investigation. This one introduced Herbert Lom, as the increasingly frazzled Inspector Dreyfus, and Burt Kwouk, as Clouseau’s houseboy-nemesis Cato. Sellers and Edwards, whose relationship was stormy, put Clouseau aside for over 10 years, until a trilogy of mid-1970s comedies restored the character to commercial (and dare we say cultural) primacy.
Unfortunately, the very funny comeback picture, Return of the Pink Panther, is absent from this set due to rights issues with the studios involved. The Pink Panther Strikes Again has Dreyfus going bananas and targeting Clouseau; Revenge of the Pink Panther puts Clouseau in a hilarious series of disguises, climaxing in a wonderfully mounted sequence in Hong Kong. (Throughout the series, the calm, classical staging of gags by Blake Edwards reminds you of what a lost art this has become.) Trail of the Pink Panther looks better now than it did when originally released in 1982, shortly after Sellers’s death; it’s a batch of unused Sellers routines from previous pictures, strung together with a loose plot. In other words, it’s a “deleted scenes” extra, and quite funny at times.
Subsequent efforts Curse of the Pink Panther and Son of the Pink Panther are neither included nor mentioned. A half-hour documentary gives pleasant memories from Edwards, but feels incomplete. The cartoon Panther gets his own 11-minute mini-doc, plus six cartoon shorts including the Oscar-winning “The Pink Phink.” –Robert Horton
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March 21, 2010
#1
Great Service. The DVD set arrived timely and in great condition!
March 22, 2010
#2
I can’t beleive they would even consider this. It is missing 4 of the movies. That’s almost half. Sure, they aren’t all great, and 2 of them are owned by other companies, but a film collection is supposed to have all the movies in a collection right? “Inspector Clouseau,” “Curse of the Pink Panther,” and “Son of the Pink Panther” aren’t on DVD, so there is no way to complete your collection. “Return of the Pink Panther” is out there from Artisan…but its just not the same. Still, if you’re a fan, you might as well pick up this set, 4 out of 5 are classic comedies.
March 22, 2010
#3
So far this set is great. Glad to have it come out on DVD. It is really worth a 5 star review except I do not like the Widescreen format. Probably because I don’t have a Widescreen TV. Otherwise extremely happy with the Amazon purchase and the DVD set.
March 22, 2010
#4
How can they possibly release this collection and not include the 1974 release, “Return of the Pink Panther”? This was one of the best of the series and the one that relaunched Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers (It also made possible the later Revenge and dreadful “Trail of …” Whatever the reason, it’s hard to support something like this. A Shot in the Dark is a very enjoyable film. The mid-60s Pink Panther is a bit overrated. “Return…” was a gem. But someone has stolen it from this six-disc collection.
March 22, 2010
#5
I do have to say that I’m very satisfied with the 6-disc set that I purchased. I bought it as a gift, and the receiver was thrilled. It also arrived in good condition, which is great. But the time of the arrival left much to be desired. I ordered the product on February 21st and received it in the mail around March 9th. I paid for the standard 5-8 or so business days, and the note beside the product did say it would take up to 11 days to ship, but 17 or 18 days is a bit excessive. I would hope that in the future, this company–which was not in fact Amazon, but merely through Amazon–would be a bit more punctual.