The Pink Panther (1963)

For those of you who think The Pink Panther is a cartoon character from a good animated series, our pink feline started out as a flaw in a fabulous diamond. If you looked deep into the rock, you could see the shape of the pink one whose cartoon character started the credits on this film.

The film The Pink Panther could best be compared to, believe it or not, is The Road to Singapore. That film was probably the weakest of the Road series, but it showed that Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had a real screen chemistry and sequels were demanded.

But the guy who made the movie going public demand the sequels here was Peter Sellers. Take Sellers out of the film and you have an average caper film held together by the considerable charm of David Niven and the rest of the cast. The movie stars David Niven, but the man who stole it completely was Peter Sellers with his indelible character of that bumbling train wreck of a Surete detective Inspector Clouseau.

Niven is the famous Sir Charles Lytton, playboy to the world, but really a legendary jewel thief known as the Phantom. He's after the famous diamond with the Pink Panther flaw that's owned by exiled princess Claudia Cardinale. Clouseau is on the case, but he doesn't know that his wife Capucine his having an affair with Niven and keeps him in the loop on the investigation. In addition Niven has a nephew who doesn't know about his double life played by Robert Wagner who'd like to embark on that kind of life himself.

People should keep several feet away from Sellers because the man is a walking train wreck. But for all his bumbling and for all of his cheating wife giving Niven inside information, he actually does have a brain, a facet of the Clouseau character in this film that a lot of people overlook. The final chase scene is something out of Mack Sennett.

Peter Sellers made four succeeding Pink Panther movies and in the second one he got a good comic foil in the person of his frazzled supervisor Herbert Lom. But that comes later.

The Pink Panther is an average caper film that has two distinguishing things. One of the most enduring and familiar film scores in movie history by Henry Mancini and it's the start of a string of films like the Road picture series centered around Peter Sellers's most enduring character creation.

Fmovies: I'd heard for years about how funny this movie is, and last night, I finally gave it a try. I haven't seen any other Pink Panther films, so I thought this would be the best place to start. Honestly, I wasn't very impressed.

The first hour or so of this movie moves at a snail's pace, if even that fast. There seems to be an endless list of characters in this film whose backstories have to be established before anything happens. Though all the loose ends are tied up eventually, it just seems to take so long to get there that even the most patient viewer will find it hard to watch all the way through in one sitting.

The "comedy" amounts to little more than Peter Sellers falling down repeatedly. There are moments of witty dialogue, but not much to speak of, and while some scenes are mildly funny, even these scenes drag on so long that the comedy becomes stale and tedious.

David Niven and Robert Wagner are both annoying more than anything else, and same with the actress who plays Sellers' wife. Claudia Cardinale is pretty, but there just wasn't much else here that I really needed to see.

On top of all that, the ending was extremely disappointing and unsatisfying. It left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm actually sorry I wasted the time to watch this movie in the first place. I most likely won't watch the sequels.

1) This is probably the most beautiful LOOKING slapstick comedy ever filmed. The sets, the scenery, the costumes, the photography - everything looks elegant and expensive.

2) For those of us who actually like the cultural atmosphere of the early sixties at least as much as that of the late sixties, this is a goldmine, ranking right up there with the early Bond films.

3) For insecure actors fixated on billing (i.e., where their names go on the credits): just remember that Peter Sellers got third billing on this film, and yet he's the one everyone thinks of when they think of "The Pink Panther." And not just because of the sequels - this was the movie that made him an American movie star. Billing can't compensate for genius.

The Pink Panther fmovies. "The Pink Panther" is a risque (for its time) romantic heist farce starring David Niven and Robert Wager, as uncle and son jewel thieves. Also included is a small slapstick part was Peter Sellers (originally to be Peter Ustinov) as the French detective hot on their trail. While the romantic farce isn't bad, the exquisite slapstick timing of Peter Sellers not only kept this movie from being an innocuous but one-note affair, it also was the genesis of a comic legend. Actually two, since the cartoon Pink Panther appears in the credits.

There's no Cato or twitching Inspector Dreyfus (they come in the next Clouseau film, "A Shot in the Dark", one of the funniest movies ever made). Viewers who grew up on the later Pink Panther films that revolve around Clouseau are bound to be disappointed, but they shouldn't let their disappointment mar the movie. Peter Sellers is funny enough in every scene he's in (in fact, he does some of his best Clouseau work in this movie). But "The Pink Panther" should be approached as a film in its own right, and accept its terms as the movie defines them. This is a subtle bedroom farce based on a heist, and it has its unique, languid beauty.

This is one of the cases in which saying a movie is very much "of its time" is a high compliment. To see THE PINK PANTHER today is to be transported to the stylish Blake Edwards '60s world of opulence, Mancini, and nutty but smart slapstick. The sequel A SHOT IN THE DARK may be funnier and more sophisticated, but PINK PANTHER is still a peerless, graceful treat, pure entertainment.

This doesn't really fit in that well with the rest of the series (of which I'm a big fan), but it's on a higher plane in a sense. Those seeking the usual slapstick fare will find plenty of it, not to mention an engagingly worldly edge lacking in the sequels. Not only is this a fine comedy, it's beautifully photographed and full of elegance. Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau is wonderful as always, but is neither the central character -- the jewel thief "The Phantom," played by David Niven, is the real protagonist -- or the source of the most laughs; Robert Wagner, the Phantom's nephew who shows up unexpected on the eve of a jewel binge, provides the movie with a force of sheer subversion. That's not to say the greatest moments aren't Clouseau's; particularly during the bedroom scenes with Capucine, Sellers is in top form.

An interesting note is the similarity of THE PINK PANTHER in many ways to Alfred Hitchcock's TO CATCH A THIEF, made in 1955. The two films have more-than-similar story lines, and both are glitzy and glamorous, but the approach is different. PANTHER is a far less serious piece of work, yet in the end it has more substance, perhaps because it refuses to take jewel thievery with the stone-faced seriousness of its counterpart. Having said that, both are great fun, and what more could you want? There is simply so much to love about this movie it's hard to know where to begin. In the hopelessly romantic world Edwards and Mancini usually present, it's pleasant to see a darker and perhaps more vibrant edge shining through. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S might be the quintessential Edwards film of the '60s, but it was released the same year as one of his best, EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, a daring, violent, noirish outing that couldn't have been more different. In the layers of irony and comic wisdom of THE PINK PANTHER Edwards finds a middle ground, and it's savory.

It is said correctly that the first two Pink Panther movies, this and "A Shot in the Dark," are more sophisticated and for adults, compared with the later series of films that began ten years later, which are more blatant slapstick and somewhat juvenile. The latter are more purely entertaining, because they cause people (even adults) to break out and laugh, whereas the humor here is more elegant and less loud, not to say it is not very good. Still, I rate the original "Pink Panther" film very highly because of its own brand of entertainment and humor, and I put it above most of its successors ("Returns" and "Strikes Again" are at least as good, but I think most people would agree that with the end ones things go downhill).

Clouseau is one of the five main characters in the film, but he is only the fourth most prominent. It might be said that David Niven as the many-times-over thief Sir Charles Litton is the most prominent, followed by Claudia Cardinale as Central Asian Princess Dala, owner of the Pink Panther diamond that is the bait to be stolen, but I would argue that Clouseau's wife Simone (played by Capucine) is as at least equal to Sir Charles, if not more prominent. After all, she is effectively a double agent — Clouseau's wife, while aiding and abetting Sir Charles — and she even has a fling with Sir Charles's nephew George Litton. Two different affairs, but all of an extremely classy and gorgeous woman, just like Claudia Cardinale, and she seems to like all three men equally. Within her romances and the intrigue of the plot there is lots of hotel bedroom-to-bedroom back and forth and hiding, etc. Simone's humor, combined with her good bearing, is great, and she is the highlight of the film to me.

Clouseau's bumbling and klutziness is there, just less-pronounced, less loud and dominant. The film flows well, with good dialogue and comedy, and elegant settings of upscale hotels and fancy parties. The wit and humor are perhaps not described as subtle, but just less loud and more intelligent and refined than that of the later films. It seems that many comedies have idiotic, goofy characters, to such an extent that they may not be funny, but in this film the five main characters are urbane and smooth. Even Sellers has that bearing, while being a klutz too. But sometimes the presence of such more refined characters does not matter if the people are not appealing and the comedy is not funny. Here, however, the characters are definitely very appealing and poised, within a well-written good script, making for a good chemistry.

There is a great scene in which Sir Charles attempts to seduce the princess, who is laying stomach down on a tiger skin. The verbal reigns over the slapstick there, as in many other parts of the movie. Still, the ending is not without the latter, and it has a good ironic twist. Yes, there will be more slapstick to come...