As in every stone of this size, there is a flaw. The slightest flaw. If you look deep into the stone, you will perceive the tiniest discoloration. It resembles a list of 200 movies you've never seen before.
The Pink Panther
1963
Blake Edwards
This is just how it goes sometimes: the film itself is fine, but the film's place in pantheon of culturally significant films is a bit more interesting. One of the benefits of writing a film column with no deadline and no paying audience is that I can view this shit with whatever lens I want, and today, it'll probably be something like "Where does the original Pink Panther film fit into what would later become a sprawling Pink Panther franchise, and does this first film in this franchise justify the existence of a franchise to begin with?"
Or whatever, I don't know. The Pink Panther didn't really inspire much within me (besides the famous theme song, which has somehow stood the test of time). It did nothing to light the fire in my soul that the best movies are able to. It was a silly comedy disguised as a spy thriller (though literally as I'm typing this sentence I begin to think, maybe that's another layer, that a spy film necessarily contains elements of forgery and deception, and the fact that The Pink Panther pretends to be a spy film when it's so obviously a comedy film at heart is itself one of its elemental deceptions... but maybe let's give that whole fucking shtick a rest today, alright?).
I don't think there's much to say regarding the paucity of laughs. This isn't a Jerk-type situation (though it is interesting that the star of The Jerk would later star in the reboots of The Pink Panther... maybe we can circle back to this if time allows). No funny hats here. But there is really only one type of comedy in this film—the comedy of incompetence. This humor style is mostly exemplified through the famous Inspector Clouseau. It's a sort of physical comedy mixed with being general unobservant. E.g. he trips on everything in his path, and accidentally smashes countless vases, and bumbles his way through every situation, and often doesn't notice obvious clues that are right in front of him (indeed, one of the plot engines is the fact that his wife is very obviously cheating on him with the villain of the movie, and Clouseau remains oblivious until the very end).
But the humor is derived from the fact that Clouseau believes that he is competent, despite the evidence to the contrary. So basically you have a cop who thinks he's brilliant while the audience knows he's a fucking moron. Utilized properly, and there are jokes to be found in this premise. The Pink Panther occasionally amped up the zaniness enough that I had some laughs, but probably not enough to justify the whole film. The classic bedroom scene, where two different suitors are trying to escape the room while Clouseau bumbles around? Funny. Endless shots of awkward blocking and Clouseau stepping on belongings and breaking them? Tiring, mostly. Not insultingly unfunny, not "aged poorly," and not lame. Just... older-style pacing, I guess. This is how the comedies were in the early '60s. Maybe The Pink Panther is sort of an Elvis Theory situation?
Or maybe I'm just just reading it wrong. Maybe it's a stealth musical. The film literally stops in the middle for a song-and-dance routine in a ski lodge (Fran Jeffries is extremely attractive), plus let's not forget the theme song that everyone on earth at least recognizes. I don't fucking know!
The most surprising aspect to this whole thing is that Inspector Clouseau is basically a supporting character in this film. It's a classic example of an actor (Peter Sellers, in this case) "stealing the show" from the true lead (David Nivens, in this case). Everyone else is playing the film serious—no jokes from leading ladies Capucine (plays Clouseau's wife) and Claudia Cardinale (the princess who inherited the pink panther jewel), who kill it as icy vixens. Robert Wagner plays it with all devious smiles, but it's more of a charming villain role than an out-and-out comedic role. (Funny to think about Robert Wagner's relationship to comedy. He played Number 2 in the Austin Powers series, where his character's whole shtick was that he doesn't get the joke. He was also married to Natalie Wood—formerly the child from Miracle on 34th Street!—and it sure seems to me that he and Christopher Walken killed her. She drowned under "mysterious circumstances," and they were the only two people on the boat besides the captain. Weird that all this is mentioned on Wood's Wikipedia page but not Wagner's.) Plus, let's not forget the fucking cartoon pink panther, who shows up during the intro credits, and would later star in a Saturday morning cartoon series. If you asked sixteen-year-old Joe what he thought the movie The Pink Panther was about, he would say "the cartoon panther?" Point being: comedy wins the day.
This is all surprising, the fact that The Pink Panther is from most vantage points a drama film, having lived most of my life with the impression that The Pink Panther franchise is and always was a showcase for the comedic talents of the actor playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau (and/or a cartoon panther). Yet here is the very first film in the franchise, and it's more or less a spy drama, with a bit of goofy eccentric fun on the side. It's not difficult to see what happened here—audiences responded to the silliness, and so the filmmakers shifted and put the focus squarely on the Clouseau character for the ten subsequent sequels.
Or whatever, I don't know. The Pink Panther didn't really inspire much within me (besides the famous theme song, which has somehow stood the test of time). It did nothing to light the fire in my soul that the best movies are able to. It was a silly comedy disguised as a spy thriller (though literally as I'm typing this sentence I begin to think, maybe that's another layer, that a spy film necessarily contains elements of forgery and deception, and the fact that The Pink Panther pretends to be a spy film when it's so obviously a comedy film at heart is itself one of its elemental deceptions... but maybe let's give that whole fucking shtick a rest today, alright?).
I don't think there's much to say regarding the paucity of laughs. This isn't a Jerk-type situation (though it is interesting that the star of The Jerk would later star in the reboots of The Pink Panther... maybe we can circle back to this if time allows). No funny hats here. But there is really only one type of comedy in this film—the comedy of incompetence. This humor style is mostly exemplified through the famous Inspector Clouseau. It's a sort of physical comedy mixed with being general unobservant. E.g. he trips on everything in his path, and accidentally smashes countless vases, and bumbles his way through every situation, and often doesn't notice obvious clues that are right in front of him (indeed, one of the plot engines is the fact that his wife is very obviously cheating on him with the villain of the movie, and Clouseau remains oblivious until the very end).
But the humor is derived from the fact that Clouseau believes that he is competent, despite the evidence to the contrary. So basically you have a cop who thinks he's brilliant while the audience knows he's a fucking moron. Utilized properly, and there are jokes to be found in this premise. The Pink Panther occasionally amped up the zaniness enough that I had some laughs, but probably not enough to justify the whole film. The classic bedroom scene, where two different suitors are trying to escape the room while Clouseau bumbles around? Funny. Endless shots of awkward blocking and Clouseau stepping on belongings and breaking them? Tiring, mostly. Not insultingly unfunny, not "aged poorly," and not lame. Just... older-style pacing, I guess. This is how the comedies were in the early '60s. Maybe The Pink Panther is sort of an Elvis Theory situation?
Or maybe I'm just just reading it wrong. Maybe it's a stealth musical. The film literally stops in the middle for a song-and-dance routine in a ski lodge (Fran Jeffries is extremely attractive), plus let's not forget the theme song that everyone on earth at least recognizes. I don't fucking know!
The most surprising aspect to this whole thing is that Inspector Clouseau is basically a supporting character in this film. It's a classic example of an actor (Peter Sellers, in this case) "stealing the show" from the true lead (David Nivens, in this case). Everyone else is playing the film serious—no jokes from leading ladies Capucine (plays Clouseau's wife) and Claudia Cardinale (the princess who inherited the pink panther jewel), who kill it as icy vixens. Robert Wagner plays it with all devious smiles, but it's more of a charming villain role than an out-and-out comedic role. (Funny to think about Robert Wagner's relationship to comedy. He played Number 2 in the Austin Powers series, where his character's whole shtick was that he doesn't get the joke. He was also married to Natalie Wood—formerly the child from Miracle on 34th Street!—and it sure seems to me that he and Christopher Walken killed her. She drowned under "mysterious circumstances," and they were the only two people on the boat besides the captain. Weird that all this is mentioned on Wood's Wikipedia page but not Wagner's.) Plus, let's not forget the fucking cartoon pink panther, who shows up during the intro credits, and would later star in a Saturday morning cartoon series. If you asked sixteen-year-old Joe what he thought the movie The Pink Panther was about, he would say "the cartoon panther?" Point being: comedy wins the day.
This is all surprising, the fact that The Pink Panther is from most vantage points a drama film, having lived most of my life with the impression that The Pink Panther franchise is and always was a showcase for the comedic talents of the actor playing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau (and/or a cartoon panther). Yet here is the very first film in the franchise, and it's more or less a spy drama, with a bit of goofy eccentric fun on the side. It's not difficult to see what happened here—audiences responded to the silliness, and so the filmmakers shifted and put the focus squarely on the Clouseau character for the ten subsequent sequels.
That's what I'm talking about regarding "context." In a few ways, The Pink Panther franchise is similar to the Friday the 13th franchise. What started as a somewhat minor character (Clouseau, Jason) turns into a major character in a double-digit number of sequels and reboots and spin-offs (eleven films total for Pink Panther, twelve films total for Friday the 13th). There is a bit of artlessness in each of the bloated films series—giving the audience what they want instead of what they need, all in the name of the almighty profit. I can imagine the possibility of a new Pink Panther film in my lifetime, and if that happens, then I can guarantee you that it will either bomb in theaters or go completely unnoticed on Hulu. Gotta wring those fucking IPs dry, ya feel me?!
Even if the film itself is mediocre and the sequels feel a bit too cannibalistic or pandering for me to ever want to check out, I do think there is value in viewing such a film as The Pink Panther. I like to think of it as a time capsule. Ah, yes, here are what guffawing audiences loved almost exactly 60 years ago (the anniversary is 12/18). It's good to know where we came from so that we can understand why we're here. That's a pretty weak thesis for today, but that's pretty much all I got. Maybe, like Inspector Clouseau, the answers are right in front of me this whole time, but I can't see them. Ah well, on to the next.
GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5
NEXT TIME: I get the feeling that Point Blank might be the inverse of The Pink Panther, in that maybe it's a movie that takes itself so seriously that it ends up being funny anyway? But that's all speculation based on nothing. We'll see next time.
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