Directed by Blake Edwards and released in 1976, the Pink Panther Strikes Again was (technically) the fifth Pink Panther film… though most folks (me included) don’t class the 1968 Inspector Clouseau as part of the series, there being a different director/writer and a different actor playing Clouseau.
This one had the inimitable Peter Sellers (
the Magic Christian) playing Clouseau – as is right and proper – and the plot sees his long suffering ex-Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom,
Count Dracula) entirely losing the plot, escaping from the hospital for the Criminally Insane and becoming a megalomaniac super villain, ala James Bond movies, whose doomsday device is put to one use – deliverance of the death of Clouseau.
It isn’t my favourite Pink Panther movie but it is a great piece of classic comedy. However, you might be wondering why it is getting an honourable mention?
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| from the credits |
Like the predecessor films it has an animated opening and in this one Clouseau and the Pink Panther (the Panther, of course, not the diamond that lent its name to the series) are featured in a sequence in which the panther takes on several film roles – from imitating Hitchcock to being in a King Kong gorilla suit. During the sequence the Panther becomes a cloaked vampire and shows us fangs. Not the film proper and a fleeting visitation but it gives me an excuse to mention a Pink Panther film!
The imdb page is
here.
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