The Pink Panther Strikes Again **** (1976, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down) – Classic Movie Review 8848

Co-writer/ director Blake Edwards’s 1976 crime comedy sequel The Pink Panther Strikes Again brings Peter Sellers back once more as bumbling Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau, who helps Scotland Yard to find kidnapped scientist Dr Hugo Fassbender (Richard Vernon), in another inventive series of slapstick gags from Sellers and Edwards.

Blake Edwards won the 1978 Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Comedy. Henry Mancini (music) and Don Black (lyrics) were Oscar nominated for the song ‘Come to Me’. It had two Golden Globe nominations: for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical (Sellers).

Happily, Herbert Lom is also back as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, now on the other side of the law after his escape from a mental home, planning to kill Inspector Clouseau. Then there is Lesley-Anne Down as Olga, the Russian spy Clouseau (Sellers) romances, the indispensable Burt Kwouk as Clouseau’s karate-butler Cato, Colin Blakely as Drummond, Leonard Rossiter as Quinlan and Omar Sharif in a cameo as a killer.

But as the Pink Panther was a diamond in the original 1963 film The Pink Panther, how could it strike again? Who cared when this fifth Pink Panther film was such a gem at the box office.

Also in the cast are André Maranne, Michael Robbins, Briony McRoberts, Paul Maxwell, Dick Crockett, Byron Kane, Jerry Stovin, Phil Brown, Bob Sherman, Robert Beatty, Paul Maxwell, Dudley Sutton, Vanda Godsell, Hal Galili and Murray Kash.

It follows The Pink Panther (1963), A Shot in the Dark (1964) and The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and is followed by Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978).

Blake Edwards and Frank Waldman wrote two scripts for a proposed Pink Panther TV series. One of them became The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), then Edwards turned the other screenplay into this film.

Richard Williams is the lead animator and Tony White is the director of the animated titles.

Richard Williams, the animator who created Who Framed Roger Rabbit and worked on The Pink Panther films, died on 16 August 2019 at 86.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8848

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