The Pink Panther (1963)
“When You’ve Seen One Stradivarius, You’ve Seen Them All.”
The Pink Panther, grandcat to a franchise that ran for 30 years, might not have the legs of a Stradivarius, but it still plays pretty well.
Directed by Blake Edwards (who made the super fun The Great Race two years later), TPP follows the sleuthing and mishaps of Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) as he tracks down the Phantom (whose identity we won’t spoil), a notorious jewel thief that seems to somehow always stay one step ahead of the accident prone Clouseau.
The MacGuffin (a fancy literary and movie term for the thing people are looking - think the bird in The Maltese Falcon or the Ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark) is an enormous pink gem with a faint panther-shaped flaw in its center, called…ummm…the Pink Panther. Owned by the lovely Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale), a royal living in exile in Rome, the Panther is the latest target for the Phantom.
The cast is a Who’s Who (or future Who’s Who) of swinging sixties talent, including Sellers, David Niven as a smooth and disarmingly charming con man, Robert Wagner as Niven’s really, really creepy nephew, Cardinale, and French actress Capucine as Clouseau’s wife, Simone.
None of the characters in TPP are who they seem (except Clouseau) so we can’t get too deep into the story without spoiling it. We can say that the movie is a fun dip into the early “jetset” Sixties: tuxedos and turtlenecks, dancing, a musical act or two, lots of alcohol and smoking, smooth and sometimes creepy seductions, and behavior (not just jewel theft) guaranteed to get someone tossed in jail if they tried it in the 2000s. We can also say that Edwards is at the top of his game from a technical perspective. The cinematography is first rate - really a decade or more ahead of its time in quality; the acting is flawless; and the action is entertaining without being over-the-top.
The Pink Panther won’t be for everyone. The storyline has elements of heist-style films (including Sinatra’s Ocean’s 11 from three years earlier) and the soft slapstick that would frame much of the later Panther films, but at times you are left wondering if Edwards really knew what kind of movie he wanted to make.
Still and all, any film that starts with Henry Mancini’s infectious theme, rolls into dognapping and a woman in a Cleopatra costume telling Seller’s to “Get your dirty hands off my asp!,” and ends with a chase scene involving gorillas, armored knights, and a zebra…well, it can’t be all bad.
You can get your paws on The Pink Panther HERE.
Three out of Five Diamonds.
💎💎💎
Post Credit Bonus #1
An interesting bit of trivia: One of the most attractive things about Princess Dala is her voice. But…Claudia Cardinale could not speak English at the time of the filming, so her dialogue was all dubbed in. Whose voice was it? A twenty-year old Gale Garnett (later of My Big Fat Greek Wedding).
Post Credit Bonus #2
The original 1963 trailer!
What did you think? Leave a comment!
Tickled pink by the Panther? One of these might be fun!
