The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is on the verge of leaving the asylum. He is supposed to be over his hatred of Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) until the new Chief Inspector Clouseau pays him a visit. Clouseau drives Dreyfus crazy who escapes. Clouseau is at home where he fights off his manservant Cato Fong (Burt Kwouk). Dreyfus' bomb fails to kill Clouseau. Dreyfus leads a criminal group to kidnap nuclear physicist Professor Fassbender and his daughter. Fassbender creates a weapon for Dreyfus which he uses to destroy the UN building in NY. Dreyfus blackmails the world to assassinate Clouseau as Clouseau's clumsy investigation close in on Dreyfus.Evil Dreyfus is so natural that it is too obvious to ignore. Peter Sellers is at the top of his game in this Pink Panther. Clouseau's fight with Cato is pure joyous slapstick. I love that and the scenes at the Fassbender home. The comedy doesn't quite come fast and furious enough after that but it is still pretty funny. The drawbridge is a slow long burn and a pure comedic turn. This is probably my favorite of the Pink Panther movies.

Radically different from the previous three 'Pink Panther' movies, this popular fourth entry takes the story to absurdist extremes with a now completely mad Chief Inspector Dreyfus escaping from an insane asylum and holding the whole world hostage with a doomsday device, demanding Clouseau's life. The extra screen time that Herbert Lom gets as a result of this plot deflection is welcome given that he was one of the main highlights of the previous two 'Pink Panther' films. The multiple failed attempts by international assassins to be the successful one to kill Clouseau also leads to several funny sequences, the best of which involves some madness in the restrooms at Oktoberfest, which of course Clouseau is completely oblivious to. While his parodying of a megalomaniacal Bond villain is spot-on, something is definitely lost though by having Lom insane from the get-go as there is no delicious gradual descent into madness as in the two earlier films. The film also unsteadily walks a tightrope between absurdist lunacy and simple inane silliness and a number of gags backfire as a result of the filmmakers pushing things too far (the climax in particular is very over-the- top). And yet, for all its detriments, 'Strikes Again' is a hard film not to warm to since the filmmakers show such obvious passion for doing something different with series and as Lom proves himself to be worthy of every extra percentage of screen time that he is given. It is probably a film that is worth giving a spin even if one disliked the first three films -- that's how different it is.

One of my favourites from childhood, I spent many years laughing at this movie with my dad and brothers. So I was quite wary about sitting down to rewatch "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" after all these years, however I need to have worried as the movie still has several laugh out loud moments and is still a lot of fun.Plot In A Paragraph: Former Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) escapes from the mental asylum and tries to kill his replacement and the man responsible for his breakdown Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) When his first attempt fails, he decided to build a Doomsday machine and demand that someone else kills Clouseau, or Dreyfus will use the machine to wipe out whole cities and even whole countries... With several assassins from all over the world out to kill him, Clouseau must save the day and his own skin. There are a lot of laughs right from the off here. The scene at the mental institute, starts things off well, Clouseau's scenes with Kato (Burt Kwok) are hilarious as always, and a lot of fun, Clouseau in the gym and his attempts to get in to the castle are still comedy gold.Sellers nails his performance as Clouseau in his fourth time in the role, and for me his is the definitive Clouseau. Steve Martin wasn't anywhere near as good in the remakes. Herbert Lom is brilliant as the insane Dreyfuss, Burt Kwok is a lot of fun as Kato whilst Leslie Ann Down looks gorgeous as Olga.

"Sinister Forces are at work" - Yes, Blake Edwards, Henry Mancini, and Peter Sellers combine their incomparable talents once again in, what is for me, the most hilarious, farcial, and funniest Pink Panther movie. Don't get me wrong - A Shot in the Dark is the best of the films. No doubt here or argument either. But this one is my favorite(not a lot more but I grew up with this one...so nostalgia has a firm hold on my viewpoint). This time around Chief Inspector Drefuss(actually former Chief Inspector Drefuss) is languishing in a mental facility. He appears to be cured of his obsessive hatred for Clouseau(the current Chief Inspector). On the day he is to be released, Clouseau pays him one of the funniest visits ever. We get head hit with croquet ball, stepping on a rake, falling into the water - twice - a rubberized arrow in the forehead, a bench that falls on one side when one person gets up, and more. That is before we even get to the credits. By the end of this opening scene Herbert Lom as Drefuss is all ready gesticulating wildly, rolling his eyes and having the best screen nervous tick I have ever seen. Well the gorgeously animated and scored credits come on and then we get a hilarious view of Clouseau's home, the inevitable "meeting" between him and Cato - and then Clouseau dressed as the Hunchback of Notre dame whilst Drefuss tries to kill him from the floor underneath. Gold. The rest of the film goes on with similar scenes. The scene where Couseau addresses a group of servants at an English manor(yes, the parallel bars), the one where he is at the all-men's club, the Octoberfest(a killer montage), or while he is trying to scale a German castle and when he finally gets in dressed as an old dentist. Sellers, Edwards, and Mancini and a host of great comedic talents like Kwouk, Lom, Leonard Rossiter, Colin Blakely, Andre Maranne(as Francois), Grahm Stark(as the man who does not have a dog that bites), and Michael Robbins as "the incomparable Aimsley Jarvis(great character bit here - I always laugh when he "belts" out "Until you loved me") make this a welcoming, zany, laugh-riot. I loved this movie when it came out and I was not quite ten. I saw it again recently and loved it all the more. It is almost flawless with its non-stop barrage of intended laughs. The guys playing the President of the United States and Henry Kissinger even do a great job lampooning them! Let's not forget Lesley-Anne Down as Olga. Breath-taking even if it is a small role(that is Omar Shariff as her initial great lover). Edwards really uses lots of farcial techniques in this one like the scene with Olga in Clouseau's bed or the grappling of the castle scene around the moat. Add Henry Mancini's beautiful score(particularly in those two scenes) and it is comedic ballet. What can I say about Sellers? He is genius personified. Lom is great. In many ways this is his film. He looks so mad. He plays one of the best insane men in screen history for my money. How about the nitrous oxide scene..."It's Clouseau...Kill him!" Great stuff.