The Pink Panther (Edwards, 1963) – Peter Sellers literally steals the show in this original film of the PP series. Taking on a role he wasn't supposed to play, remodeling it into a comedic performance and nailing it enough to convince everyone to make it the central piece of the movie (the Phantom was supposed to be the main character), Sellers probably made himself sick on diet pills and overwork for this one, but it marks his first collaboration with Blake Edwards and his entry in superstardom. The film itself has a lot of fun though uneven vignettes and relies a lot on simple slapstick built around Inspector Clouseau's goofiness. Many elements here presage great things to come – especially in the last part where you can feel The Party coming – and the film gains from being mostly unrelated to the later PP formula. 5/10
A Shot In the Dark (Edwards, 1964) – Now this is the true original PP movie as we know them. Inspector Clouseau gains his famous nonsensical French accent, and Dreyfus, Kato and cie make their entry (none of that is in the first film, which wasn't conceived as a Clouseau vehicle). It's a pretty good film too, based on a play, it's a classic “bring everyone to the living room, I'll solve the case” detective story where everyone (and no one!) is a suspect, despite the fact that the maid is present with the murder weapons in her hands at the first few murder sites. Maybe not the funniest of the PP films, but the classiest, and still fun enough to rank pretty high among my favorite comedies of all times. 7/10
Inspector Clouseau (Yorkin, 1968) – There's good bits of comedy in there somewhere. It's just clumsy, weakly executed, and so very badly acted (doesn't help that they replaced Sellers with an incompetent – maybe part of the joke? – who makes Clouseau feel more like a r***** than an imbecile; sound problems and re-dub, always on his dialogues, just amplifies how weak the delivery is of his often pretty funny lines). The overall result is mostly awkward, kind of feel like an amateur theater group version of a PP film – Yorkin just can't direct slapstick the way Edwards does – but it has its moments. 3/10
The Return of the Pink Panther (Edwards, 1975) – This is a return to the original story (the world famous Pink Panther diamond and the Phantom thief – here played by Plummer instead of Niven), with the additional cast of A Shot In the Dark (Dreyfus, Cato with a C, etc.). More importantly, the return of Sellers, Edwards and Mancini, really the trio that makes these films work. The film opens on the robbery of the diamond, which is treated with grand serious if not for one slapstick joke during the escape – and then, of course, Clouseau is put on the case. This is the film that introduced me to Sellers and Edwards as a kid, and the reason why I'll go through the DVD-set once every few years for the rest of my life. I've seen it so many times that it doesn't work too well comedy-wise for me anymore, it still has its moments (the introduction of Clouseau with the minkey, of course), but not everything works – personally, Catherine Schell's Lady Litton is a timing disaster and her reactions to Clouseau smothers most of the comedy (Clouseau's original innocent goofiness is really pushed to over-the-top slapstick from this one on, his accent is also cranked to 10 and will reach 20 in the next two films). There's something off-putting with the ending too, which feels botched and mismanaged (resolution comes from the museum guide's retelling of the story). Not a great film – though it has a few interesting intertextual elements – but still a pretty good comedy, a genre that can often work fine without much refinement. 4.5/10
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (Edwards, 1976) – The previous film was already over the top in its humor, this one just goes all in. Dreyfus is now a Bond villain with machinery able to destroy continents, and the clumsy inspector is just clumsier. It feels really formulaic now, the sequence of assassins going after Clouseau and only eliminating each other is even a little dull from repetition, but it also has some of my favorite Clouseau moments (him trying to get in the Castle is just pure gold). The inspector was always a fan of silly costumes and role playing, but he now gets his stuff tailored and that's too pushed over-the-top. Probably a slightly lesser film than Return of the PP, it still might just be the funniest entry of the whole series, and its absurd world-ending threat helps its rewatchability (even the title is complete nonsense, the Pink Panther, the diamond not being part of this film at all – as for the credits' cartoon character, it's probably its best bits of the series). 4.5/10
Revenge of the Pink Panther (Edwards, 1978) – The film suffers a lot from repetition, nothing really new or fresh, but this is the last time Sellers played Inspector Clouseau (and he was in pretty bad shape at that point), and only for that, it's still somewhat worth it. Edwards couldn't even do without Dreyfus, so he's just back at it, with no mention of him being disintegrated in the previous entry. Despite the film pushing it too far with the costumes and the nonsensical accent, it still kind of works as a low-tier PP film, until the silly chase and fireworks finale which is just bad comedy. A (very) few funny scenes, don't save this one – the magic is mostly gone. 3/10
Trail of the Pink Panther (Edwards, 1982) – Certainly, 2 years after his death, Peter Sellers couldn't play Clouseau one last time... but yeah. This film is almost interesting just for existing. It's part experimental collage of outtakes, recycling of already used material, and faux Clouseau (and nothing works about the Sellers impostor, especially not the voice imitation), and part desperate attempt at making what could either be a failed homage or a mockery. The result is mostly embarrassing, and the constant “jokes” about the lady reporter's physique might just be the worst of it (it's also the first film of the series with (brief) nudity – they just knew they had nothing). The encompassing “story” trying to hold these scattered pieces together just doesn't work (it's not even absurd, it's just bad – and the Citizen Kane-ish investigation is just an obvious excuse to push the movie's runtime to its required 90 minutes). The young Clouseau episode could have been interesting had it not been rushed. Still, the best part of the film is the “best of” montage of scenes from the previous entries making up the end credits, which says a lot. 2/10
Curse of the Pink Panther (Edwards, 1983) – The film opens as another lazy attempt at cashing in on the PP series, recycling the opening of Trail of the Pink Panther. Dialogues are often stale, and the slapstick ain't what it was with Sellers, but the film has a few pretty funny moments you wished he had filmed himself. It feels like that new American inspector stumbles into what often feels like a real formulaic PP movie, with the usual faces, sets, exotic locations, and some recycled jokes. There's French in France in this one (at last) – a few lines at least, and a sign in the Clouseau Museum which is so badly written it can only be a voluntary joke. Inspector Clouseau is forced in the story, now played by Roger Moore after plastic surgery, but he's completely out of character. The film is generally despised, but it's a lot better than the previous one – it's a bland movie made by a bored Blake Edwards, but I still laughed (more than I should have). 3/10
I'm missing the Son and the remakes, but couldn't go on. Maybe at some other time.
