Review of The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) by Everett J — 05 Mar 2009

The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

directed by Blake Edwards.

written by Blake Edwards and Frank Waldman.

starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Leslie-Anne Down, Burt Kwouk, Colin Blakely, Leonard Rossiter, Andre Maranne, Byron Kane, Dick Crockett, Richard Vernon, Briony McRoberts.

Former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Lom) is facing a sanity review hearing to determine if he is able to return to normative social life. He has made much progress in three years and is eagerly awaiting his opportunity to plead his case. However, he does not expect to run into newly appointed Chief Inspector Clouseau (Sellers) who has been asked to say a few words on Dreyfus?s behalf. Naturally chaos ensues whenever Clouseau appears and Dreyfus quickly reverts to the old routine vowing to cause immediate death to his arch enemy. Dreyfus is hauled away and subsequently turned down. However, he makes a break for it and transforms himself into a would-be dictator.

The film focuses on Dreyfus?s acquirement of a ?doomsday? device that is created for him by a leading scientist named Fassbinder (Vernon) who, along with the old man?s daughter, Margo, Dreyfus has had kidnaped. Dreyfus convinces Fassbinder to create the device by threatening to do perfectly awful things to his daughter. So, Fassbinder goes along with it and soon Dreyfus has managed to make the U.N. Headquarters building disappear. He threatens to do the same to the entire planet unless someone can bring him the head of Jacques Clouseau.

Lom makes for a quite excellent madman. Dreyfus is maniacal, devious, and thoroughly engaging as the film progresses. It?s easy to feel sympathy for Dreyfus especially considering how irritated he must be by all of Clouseau?s colossal screw-ups. Losing one?s mind is a perfectly normal reaction to such circumstances and Dreyfus?s many attempts to get Clouseau are understandable. Here he has assembled a crack team of some of the world?s best criminal minds in order to bring his plan into fruition. His big failure is that he is far too obsessed with Clouseau and he subsequently makes demands to the world?s leaders that are underwhelming. All he wants is a dead Clouseau whereas with the great and terrible weapon at his disposal he could have anything he wants at any time.

Peter Sellers?s inane tendencies are kept more under wraps in this film than in previous installments. Also, in this film Clouseau actually manages to deduce a clue and uses it to locate Dreyfus?s hideout. Clouseau proves once again that he is indeed the best man for the job even if his techniques amount to little more than blind luck.

The sex interest in this film comes in the form of Russian Agent Olga Bariosova (Down) who purrs and pants effectively enough throughout. She is one of two dozen assassins who have been hired by various countries to take out Clouseau but she, like the others, ultimately fails. As per usual Clouseau is immune to any attempts to take his life and in this one the efforts to fall him are routinely comical and progressively more outrageous.

The film possesses a grim seriousness that seems to be something relatively novel for the franchise. Yes, there is lunacy afoot but the storyline itself has a severity that hasn?t been put forth in previous engagements. In this film the threat of perfect annihilation hovers over every frame of the film. The film actually does a fine job of instilling fear into its audience despite the sheer level of absurdity it reaches through the bumbling, overarching persona of Clouseau. Ultimately, the high level of comedy quashes the severity of the narrative and the intoxication of the asinine maneuverings of Clouseau prevail as everything sour and deranged is quietly solved.

Overall, this film maintains a level of infinite preposterousness throughout. There are few screaming fits of pure, unadulterated infantilism although this is more than made up for by the grinning, maniacal performance by Herbert Lom. He?s the true joy in this film and it?s thrilling to watch him slip comfortably into the cushion air-soles of a despot-in-training. Lom brings such a definitive presence to this role and it?s exquisite to see him bark orders as he attempts to gain a stranglehold on his ambitions to rid the world once and for all of the fiend that haunts him at every turn. Lom has always been the great dark horse in this series and he brings a humble sophistication to every scene he is in. Peter Sellers looks a bit wan during this film and it is known that he was quite ill during production. His throbbing idiocy has again been replaced by a more acute dissection of order and structure. It seems that with every film Clouseau becomes more and more of a threat to the very fabric that holds people together and Dreyfus?s fears subsequently become more understandable as the series progresses.