Review of The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) by Rebecca H — 13 Nov 2008

The Pink Panther has been stolen again, and the original thief, The Phantom, has been framed for the crime. Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is called in to investigate, but Charles Litton aka the Phantom (Christopher Plummer, failing to be suave) decides to clear his own name first.

Riotous to begin with, this fails from lack of a coherent plot. Clouseau spends the whole film in the wrong country, while Litton is lumbered with a bewildering frame plot with too many characters that is never explained well enough. The film is split so exactly between Clouseau and Litton that neither are given any time to be engrossing.

It is a bad idea to bring back Litton, the hero of the first film, so that once again he can vie for screen time with Clouseau, and Plummer is no David Niven, twenty years too young for a start, he lacks the charisma that made Litton such a bewitching lead in the first place. This just makes the already complex and ill-explained plot harder to follow, especially as his female companion is apparently not the one from the first film (who was Clouseau's wife), even though that's what the whole first film was about.

While it is mirthful to think Clouseau is so insufferable that he makes people want to murder him, this sub-plot that collides messily with the main non-plot is just lazy.

It doesn't help that the direction is so abysmal that most of the time it is impossible to see what is going on while the music is distracting and works as a sedative. Because the plot is such a non-starting failure, this makes the whole film humdrum, despite some sparkling moments.