THE EXPLOSIVE REVIEW

Starring: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Brenda De Banzie, Colin Gordon, John Le Mesurier, James Lanphier, Guy Thomajan, Michael Trubshawe, Riccardo Billi, Meri Welles, Martin Miller, Fran Jeffries, and Claudia Cardinale.

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Story:
The young Princess Dala receives a gift from her father, the Shah of Lugash, the world’s largest diamond that has an unusual flaw: the discoloration of a leaping pink panther can be perceived when looking deeply into the stone. Years later, the Princess has grown up into a young woman; meanwhile, rebels of Lugash seize power and the Pink Panther diamond is on their list of high demands, however, Princess Dala will stop at nothing to hand it over. She leaves on a getaway holiday at Cortina d’Ampezzo, an exclusive skiing resort. Also vacationing there is Sir Charles Lytton, a British playboy living a secret life as ‘The Phantom’, a jewel thief who is also after the Pink Panther diamond. Yet at the same time, Lytton’s American playboy nephew, George, accompanies him to the resort as well in an attempt to also snag the pink jewel and blame it on the Phantom, but George doesn’t realize that his uncle is actually the Phantom himself.

Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Police has made capturing the Phantom his life’s work. He comes close to stopping the theft attempts but his clueless and clumsy habits cause him to pay attention to everything but the right place. Also oblivious to him is the fact that his wife, Simone, is helping Charles commit his crimes.

Characters:
*Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven): A British playboy who leads a double life, the second of which being a well-known jewel thief known as the Phantom. He is hot on the trail of the Pink Panther diamond.
*Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers): The clueless detective caught up in the middle of all of this. As always, he makes us laugh, question, and at the same time, smack ourselves in the head.
*George Lytton (Robert Wagner): Charles’ nephew, who is also a playboy (albeit an American one), however, he is also a thief who wants the jewel for himself and in return blame its disappearance on the Phantom - not knowing that his own uncle IS the Phantom.
*Simone Clouseau (Capucine): Clouseau’s wife who happens to be an accomplice to Sir Charles aka The Phantom. Of course, her husband doesn’t know about this.
*Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale): The Princess of Lugash whom the Pink Panther jewel belongs to. She is one hot dark-eyed, dark-haired babe.

Overall:
This is the first film in “The Pink Panther” franchise which depicted the clueless and bumbling Inspector Clouseau and his many misadventures to locate and retrieve the Pink Panther diamond. This first entry introduces the main character quite well, however, the film’s first half almost suffers from complete boredom with the exception of whenever Inspector Clouseau is present. There’s too many long dialogue sequences and one or two musical numbers which could have been left out on the cutting room floor.

However, the second half of the film features way more comedic moments and situations, it injects a lot more of that laughing juice which was missing earlier - There’s an anti-climatic sequence in Clouseau’s room where his wife is juggling hiding places for the two thieves (because she is an accomplice) and trying to keep them out of sight from her husband, scenes like this is what makes the franchise what it is. Also notable is the climatic end sequence at the costume party in the mansion which ends in a multi-car chase, talk about action packed with a barrel of laughs. The ending, unfortunately, isn’t picked up upon in its sequel (”A Shot In The Dark”) and makes us assume what happened.

This first film does not feature Clouseau’s servant Cato (Burt Kwouk) and his boss Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) who can’t stand him, and it is the only film not to feature them. Their presence is very much missed here, that is if you watched the others before this one, however, looking back, this film would have been a lot more lively if they had been included here.

Rating: ***1/2

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