Review of The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) by Andrew G — 03 Aug 2007

Many things about this film work. Peter Sellers is typically hilarious - he has only to mispronounce "monkey" and I'm laughing - Christopher Plummer is perfectly suave and dashing as The Phantom, and the opening gamble of the plot, where the famous thief is framed for stealing the diamond, is clever.

Unfortunately these elements never jell, and the plot quickly becomes incoherent and confused. The activities of Clouseau and The Phantom have little to do with each other, as both of them go on pointless film-length errands; Clouseau in particular spends half the film uselessly bumbling around a hotel in the wrong country.

On top of this, Blake Edwards' direction is ghastly: the endless artificial pans are highly distracting, sometimes he forgets to actually point the camera at what's happening, and the lighting is often so bad you'll have no idea what's going on.

It's a pile of disparate good bits held together weakly by a non-plot, and the ending is one of the laziest I've ever seen. Good for a few giggles, then, but it's missing any kind of impressive set-piece (apart from the robbery at the start, which goes on too long) which are usually found in this genre.

(And in the first film - the Gorilla robbery.) There are several films in here, which all would benefit from room to breathe and a less clueless director at the helm.