Films and Themes
As of 2012, eleven Pink Panther films have been made:
| Film | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The Pink Panther | 1964 | Although the film was centered on David Niven, Peter Sellers was so popular that the resulting series would be built on Clouseau rather than the Phantom/Sir Charles Litton. |
| A Shot in the Dark | 1964 | Released less than a year after The Pink Panther. Clouseau returns to bumble his way through a murder investigation. This also marks the first appearance of both Herbert Lom's Charles Dreyfus and Burt Kwouk's Cato. |
| Inspector Clouseau | 1968 | This film stars Alan Arkin as Clouseau, and does not have any other recurring characters (Dreyfus, Cato, the Phantom, etc.) from the rest of the series. Although produced by the Mirisch Corporation, Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini were not involved in the making of this film. |
| The Return of the Pink Panther | 1975 | This not only marks the return of the famous "Pink Panther" diamond but also that of Peter Sellers as Clouseau, along with Edwards, Mancini, Dreyfus and Cato. Sir Charles Litton is portrayed by Christopher Plummer. |
| The Pink Panther Strikes Again | 1976 | Dreyfus's insanity reaches a pinnacle, as he tries to intimidate the rest of the world into killing Clouseau. |
| Revenge of the Pink Panther | 1978 | This film pits Clouseau against the French Connection. It is the last in which Sellers played Clouseau. He died two years after its release. |
| Trail of the Pink Panther | 1982 | Features Peter Sellers as Clouseau using unused material from Strikes Again as well as scenes from previously released Pink Panther films. This was intended as a tribute to Sellers, but after its release Sellers's widow Lynne Frederick successfully sued Edwards and the studio for tarnishing her late husband's memory. David Niven and Capucine reprise their original roles. The film was a critical and commercial failure. |
| Curse of the Pink Panther | 1983 | Inspector Clouseau and the Pink Panther diamond, both of which had gone missing in Trail, are pursued by the bumbling American detective, Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass). Clouseau returns in an amusing cameo played by an uncredited Roger Moore after having plastic surgery to disguise his identity. Although intended to spawn a new series of misadventures for Sergeant Sleigh, the film's dismal box office performance and critical drubbing led to a decade-long hiatus of the series. |
| Son of the Pink Panther | 1993 | Roberto Benigni tries to revive the series by portraying Gendarme Jacques Gambrelli, Inspector Clouseau's illegitimate son by Maria Gambrelli (the murder suspect from A Shot in the Dark). Once again, many former Panther co-stars return - Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk and Graham Stark, and a star of the original 1964 film, Claudia Cardinale. Although intended to relaunch the series with a new lovable bumbling hero, Son became the final installment in the original Panther series. |
| The Pink Panther | 2006 | This launches a new Pink Panther series starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau and Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Dreyfus. Not a remake of the original film, it forms a new starting point for a contemporary series, introducing the Clouseau and Dreyfus characters along with the famous diamond to a new generation. |
| The Pink Panther 2 | 2009 | The sequel to Steve Martin's 2006 film. Martin reprises his role, but John Cleese replaces Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Dreyfus. |
Although the two most recent Pink Panther films starred Steve Martin, most of the films in the series starred Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards. The popular jazz-based theme music was composed by Henry Mancini. In addition to the credits sequences, the theme often accompanies any suspenseful sequence in the first film and in subsequent films using the character.
Mancini's other themes for the first film include an Italian-language set-piece called "Meglio Stasera" whose purpose seems primarily to introduce young actress Fran Jeffries. Portions of an instrumental version also appear in the film's musical score several times. Other segments include "Shades of Sennett", a "honky tonk" piano number introducing the film's climactic chase scene through the streets of Rome. Most of the remaining tracks on the soundtrack album are early 1960s orchestral jazz pieces, matching the style of the era. Although variations of the main theme would be reprised for many of the Pink Panther series entries, as well as the cartoon series, Mancini composed a different theme for A Shot in the Dark that was later adopted by the animated spin-off series, The Inspector.
The Pink Panther of the title is a diamond supposedly containing a flaw which forms the image of a "leaping panther", which can be seen if held up to light in a certain way. This is explained in the beginning of the first film, and the camera zooms in on the diamond to reveal the blurry flaw, which focuses into the Panther (albeit not actually leaping) to start the opening credits sequence (this is also done in Return). The plot of the first film is based on the theft of this diamond. The diamond reappears in several later films in the series (The Return of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther). It also comes in the 2006 reintroduction of Inspector Clouseau also called The Pink Panther and its sequel The Pink Panther 2). The name "the Pink Panther" became attached to Inspector Clouseau, in much the same way that Frankenstein has been used in film titles to refer to Dr. Frankenstein's creation or The Thin Man was used in a series of detective films.
A Shot in the Dark, a film which was not originally intended to feature Inspector Clouseau, is the first of two films in the series (the other being Inspector Closeau) that features neither the diamond nor the distinctive animated Pink Panther in the opening credits and ending. Many critics, including Leonard Maltin, regard this film as the best in the series.
In the original Pink Panther movie, the main focus was on David Niven's role as Sir Charles Litton, the infamous jewel thief nicknamed "the Phantom", and his plan to steal the Pink Panther. The Inspector Clouseau character plays only a supporting role as Litton's incompetent antagonist, and provided slapstick comic relief to a movie that was otherwise a subtle, lighthearted crime drama, a somewhat jarring contrast of styles which is typical of Edwards's films. The popularity of Clouseau caused him to become the main character in subsequent Pink Panther films, which were more straightforward slapstick comedies.
Mancini's theme, with variations in arrangement, is used at the start of all but the first two of the subsequent films.
The first five Peter Sellers–Blake Edwards films were released by United Artists. Trail, Curse and Son were released by MGM/United Artists. DVD rights to The Return of the Pink Panther are now controlled by Universal Pictures' Focus Features division, in partnership with British production company ITC Entertainment and successor-in-interest ITV Global Entertainment Ltd. Focus Features issued this film on DVD for Region 1.
ITC originally intended to make an Inspector Clouseau television series, but Blake Edwards convinced the production company to back a feature film first, and later a series if the film should prove successful. The film exceeded expectations by becoming the most profitable film of 1975. United Artists quickly bought out ITC's investment and work immediately started on the next feature film.
Although official, the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau is generally not considered by fans to be part of the Pink Panther canon since it did not involve Sellers or Edwards. Some elements of Arkin's performance and costuming, however, were retained when Peter Sellers took back the role for Return in 1975. Despite speculation, Alan Arkin does not appear in Trail of the Pink Panther.
The film that launched the second Pink Panther series, The Pink Panther, starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, directed by Shawn Levy, and produced by Robert Simonds, was released in February 2006. This is the first Panther film to be released by Columbia Pictures, which co-produced the film with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is set in the present day and introduces different main characters, therefore belonging to a different continuity. Martin also stars in the sequel, The Pink Panther 2, released in 2009.
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