Inspector Clouseau (1968) * *

Directed by:  Bud Yorkin

Starring:  Alan Arkin, Frank Finlay

Peter Sellers made the role of bumbling French detective Jacques Clouseau famous over the course of five Pink Panther films made during his lifetime.     The film, Inspector Clouseau, was expected to be made with Sellers reteaming with director Blake Edwards.   However, the team decided to make The Party, the only non-Pink Panther film they made together.     The studio pressed on and cast Alan Arkin in the role of Clouseau and hired Bud Yorkin as director.     The results are mixed, but not for reasons you would think.  

By 1968, Edwards and Sellers made two Pink Panther films, the remaining three would be released between 1975 and 1978.     Alan Arkin actually did the right thing by not attempting to imitate Peter Sellers.    His Clouseau is a careful reimagining.      Sellers' take on the role including a very thick French accent and a never ending belief in his own brilliance, even when all evidence is to the contrary.     Arkin's Clouseau has an accent, but not an impenetrable one.     He has occasions in which he simply can't help but slip, trip, and fall, but he also seems more human, more bewildered, and played with a sneaky belief that he knows that he solves cases by pure luck.     He has to know that he is in over his head.    Would hardcore Clouseau fans accept this version?     Probably not, but I was intrigued by it.     It's not heresy to have another actor play Clouseau.    After all, Beatles and Elvis Presley songs have been covered. 

However, Inspector Clouseau likely wouldn't have worked even with Sellers in it.     The plot is lackluster, involving a string of London robberies which Clouseau is brought in by Scotland Yard to solve.     There are pratfalls and, hell, Alan Arkin can fall down and bungle things just as well as Sellers can.    Once you see one slip, you see them all.    There are no truly hilarious moments in Inspector Clouseau, just some chuckles here and there.    Even those are islands onto themselves, although I thought the way the thieves smuggled the stolen loot out of the country was pretty ingenious.   

Alan Arkin's Clouseau was a one-off performance.    Peter Sellers returned to the series in Return of the Pink Panther (1975), along with Edwards, Henry Mancini, Inspector Dreyfus and Cato (all are absent here).      If anything, Jacques Clouseau was a footnote in Arkin's career, which has included four Oscar nominations and one win for Best Supporting Actor in 2006.    He's a genuine talent and I admired his risktaking by playing a role which would be forever linked to another actor.     Inspector Clouseau didn't do Arkin any favors with a weak script and uninspired slapstick, leaving Arkin hanging around trying in vain to do something funny.