Return of the Pink Panther (1975) * *

Directed by:  Blake Edwards

Starring:  Peter Sellers, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk

Except for plot points, I could almost rewrite my A Shot In The Dark review for Return of the Pink Panther and not change a word.    Almost.   This was the third in the series and came after an 11-year hiatus.     Many of the elements from A Shot In The Dark are present, including Cato's attacks on Clouseau and Dreyfus' escalating hatred of the inept detective.     Nearly anything positive Clouseau does should be seen as a miracle.    This includes taking a bath without destroying a hotel bathroom, which doesn't happen here.

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen again from a museum in the fictional country of Lugash, which looks to be in the Middle East.    The Phantom is the prime suspect, played here by Christopher Plummer.    He has been retired for years and living the good life in the South of France, but he doesn't want to be arrested for a crime he didn't commit, so he flies to Lugash to determine who the real thief is.    Clouseau is brought in to solve the crime, much to the chagrin of Dreyfus who just suspended Clouseau for failing to thwart a robbery.    Clouseau was more interested in chastising a blind man and his "minkey" for playing an accordion in front of the bank without a license.    When told the blind man was really a lookout, Clouseau dismisses this, "He was blind.   He told me so."    Who is anyone to question his brilliance?

Pink Panther films are well-known for sight gags and slapstick, but in Return, it is clear that Sellers avoids the obvious in order to stage long sequences of pratfalls.    He goes under a desk to retrieve something instead of going around it to pick it up, and thus flips the desk over.    Instead of unplugging an out-of-control vacuum, he continues to try and vacuum with it.    He is only pretending to be a housekeeper in order to gain access to a suspect's room, so why vacuum at all?    Many of these sequences tend to run long and aren't very funny.

Plummer's scenes aren't played for laughs, but seemed to have been dropped in from a nearby spy movie.     Plummer can play suave with the best of them, but he seems to be acting in an entirely different film than Sellers and the rest of the gang.     Dreyfus is driven into an apoplectic rage by Clouseau and Cato takes his normal whooping when he attacks his boss.     There are many scenes in which Clouseau pronounces something using his French/very bad English accent and the clerk/secretary/boss can't help but express their confusion.     One of these would've done instead of four or five. 

The best of the Sellers' Pink Panther series remains Revenge of the Pink Panther, which contains the most inspired work in the series.     The Pink Panther Strikes Again contains some good stuff that exists outside of Sellers' universe.     The rest of the films don't deliver nearly as well.     Blake Edwards and Sellers strain for laughs, but the energy expended translates to an occasionally funny movie but little else.