The Pink Panther Film Collection Review:

Synopsis

The Pink Panther Film Collection contains five classic Blake Edwards comedies featuring the bumbling exploits of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, a disastrous Frenchman brought to life by the uncanny genius of Peter Sellers.

The Pink Panther (1963)
When famous The Pink Panther diamond goes missing the bumbling Inspector Clouseau goes on the trail of notorious jewel thief The Phantom, but looks everywhere except in the right place!

A Shot in the Dark (1964)
Inspector Clouseau investigates a country-house murder in which all fingers point to the pretty maid Maria but Clouseau clearly sees her innocence. First appearances in the series by Herbert Lom as the long suffering Sgt. Dreyfus and Burt Kwouk as the martial arts ambush specialist Cato.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Being sent insane by working with Clouseau for too long Sgt. Dreyfus vows to destroy him forever – and if he can't he vows he will destroy the world. Clouseau ends up with over 20 assassins on his tail but is more worried about his martial arts manservant getting the better of him!

Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
Following Clouseau's supposed assassination, Dreyfus is declared sane and released. But how will he cope with the truth when he finds out that the Inspector is actually alive and undercover working with Cato to discover who wanted him dead.

Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
Made following the death of Sellers. An investigative journalist – played by Joanna Lumley – tries to get to the bottom of Clouseau's mysterious disappearance. Many of the stars of the series (including David Niven) return to tell their stories. Includes flashbacks, classic scenes, deleted scenes and outtakes.

The Film

In the early 1960s, Director Blake Edwards released The Pink Panther, an ensemble heist comedy starring Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, Claudia Cardinale and Capucine. This original film was fairly good, but only truly shined when Peter Sellers was on screen as the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The ending was a tour de force exercise in mayhem and timing, allowing Sellers to ultimately steal the show despite the fact that David Niven received top billing for the film.

With his quirky French accent (not quite fully tweaked at this stage), disaster prone nature and uncanny ability to solve crimes unwittingly, Sellers as Clouseau won a place in viewers' hearts and returned (with top billing) in a line of sequels. This box set includes four of the sequels, while a number of other installments in the series could sadly not be included for copyright reasons. However, only one of these absentees, Return Of The Pink Panther, will actually be missed - the remainder lacked the heart and soul of the series, Peter Sellers.

The second film (both in the box set and on the Pink Panther timeline), A Shot In The Dark, was adapted from an unconnected stageplay to incorporate the Clouseau character. This first sequel was a hilarious comedy of errors that comfortably topped the first film in terms of humour. Sellers had perfected the intricacies of his accent and his character was generally more stupid, clumsier and placed in an even more slapstick setting.

Clouseau's summary of 'the facts' has passed into legend, while his antics at the Ballon household are side-splittingly funny. Be on the look out for first appearances by Herbert Lom as Chief Inspector Dreyfus and Burt Kwouk as Cato, a martial arts expert hired to test Clouseau's self-defence skills through surprise attacks.

The third film in this box set, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, was made over a decade after A Shot In The Dark. Peter Sellers had developed an awkward relationship with Director Blake Edwards and presumably only returned to the character for monetary reasons. Thankfully, this installment has some hilarious scenes and quotes. Clouseau's darkened entry into (and tumbling exit from) a small gym room, for example, is a true highlight, while even trivial matters such as ordering a hotel room (or 'reum') are made funny.

The major downfall of the film, however, is the over-the-top lunacy of Herbert Lom's Dreyfus. The entire notion of the magic laser beam was totally out of keeping with the rest of the series and too far-fetched for most audience members. Overall, the good portions outweight the bad ones and this remains a solid film, but the seeds of decline for the Pink Panther series had definitely been sown here.

The next film, Revenge Of The Pink Panther, opens with a quite jarring attempt to gloss over Dreyfus' insanity in the last film. Thankfully, once this continuity matter is dealt with, the tale manages to deliver quite a few early laughs. However, the plot subsequently dies out quite quickly thanks to unremarkable secondary characters and forgettably storylines. One of the only memorable aspects is the heightened number of disguises that Clouseau employs - turns as a Scandinivian fisherman and an Italian-American gangster are just some of the transformations on offer.

Although Peter Sellers died of a heart attack in 1980, Blake Edwards decided to release another Clouseau film, Trail Of The Pink Panther, by blending outtakes and clips from earlier films in the series with newly shot footage featuring the other characters. The end result was a somewhat amusing trip down memory lane for fans and the filing of successful lawsuit by Sellers' third wife for insulting the memory of her late husband. For whatever reason, some the finest Pink Panther excerpts are actually not included in this tale - perhaps Edwards couldn't find a way to coherently incorporate them.

Overall, the Pink Panther films deservedly enjoy a place in the cinematic history books for their unique charm and lovable performances by Peter Sellers. The box set may lack the admirable Return Of The Pink Panther (along with a few unimportant and unwanted installments without Sellers), but it remains an essential purchase for Inspector Jacques Clouseau's numerous fans.

Video

MGM have done a very good job at transferring all five films onto the DVD format. The image quality is quite consistent when comparing the different installments, although The Pink Panther and A Shot In The Dark feel easiest on the eye thanks to their colourful sets and characteristic Sixties cinematography.

Sharpness is fairly pleasing on all five film discs and surprisingly little print damage interferes with the visuals. A skiing sequence from The Pink Panther is probably the spottiest scene to be found amongst the box set - the brilliant white ski slopes are understandably adept at exposing the tiniest of physical flaws.

Colour reproduction is solid almost throughout, with very little performance variation either positively or negatively. Once again, The Pink Panther suffers from the biggest isolated lapse in this regard - the final scene with Clouseau in the back of the police car exhibits shambolic colour fluctuations. However, it is important to reiterate that this is an isolated incident and the transfers are generally well-behaved on this front.

Finally, unwanted grain and noise are only present in negligible quantities, while black levels are rock solid. Overall, therefore, the films look great after all these years and fans should be very pleased as far as the visuals are concerned.

Audio

Unsurprisingly, the films have been remixed into the Dolby Digital 5.1 format. However, the soundtracks are understandably average in comparison to modern, 'native' 5.1 streams due to the inferior quality of the source material.

Dialogue is tightly balanced and audible, while cranking up the volume will not unleash an undue amount of background hiss. A few instances of superior surround speaker usage populate each film, but, on the whole, the rears expose the upmixed nature of the soundtracks through their minimal workload.

To summarise, the 5.1 soundtracks are almost inevitably mediocre thanks to the age of the films, yet adequate for the content at hand.

Extras

With regards to the extras, MGM have bundled a few extras on The Pink Panther disc, included only trailers with the other four films and then finished off with a final disc containing general extras from the series. Note that all video extras are in 1.33:1 full-frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound.

First up on The Pink Panther disc is an audio commentary by Director Blake Edwards - thankfully, this is a recently recorded track and not a compilation of archived interview snippets. Overall, this is a fairly good commentary but perhaps not strong enough to hold the interest of casual fans. Edwards imparts a variety of interesting trivia points about both the film and its cast, but silent gaps in his discussion are too frequent at times. This first film also boasts an attractive subtitle trivia track - it would be wise to use this in conjunction with the commentary in order to keep things flowing when Edwards momentarily drys up.

Meanwhile, the sixth disc commences with 'The Pink Panther Story' documentary, which is a 29 minute retrospective look at the origins of the series, the casting for The Pink Panther and Peter Sellers' relationship with Blake Edwards. Interviewees include Edwards himself, along with a few other key crew members and studio bigwigs.

Up next is the brilliant 'That's Panthertainment' documentary, which runs for 47 minutes. The item is essentially centred around the glamourous three day press junket held for Revenge Of The Pink Panther. Contemporary interviews with the stars, including Sellers, feature throughout and even a young Steve Martin pops up in a brief interview clip. One female interviewer is particularly annoying to watch in action but the mixture of input from the cast, together with rare outtakes from the set, makes this documentary a gem for fans.

The next extra is 'The Unknown Peter Sellers' documentary, which is a clips-laden retrospective look at the life of this true comedy genius. Interviews with promient UK entertainers, such as Michael Palin, feature heavily in this riveting exploration of Sellers' career. It's very disheartening to learnt about the low points in the life of such a talented comedian, but this extra is a strong asset to the box set, even considering the fact that most of Sellers' fans will have already seen it.

With his bank balance shrinking towards the end of his career, it's not surprising that Sellers appeared in commercials to make ends meet. Six of these hilarious adverts are included here, serving as further proof of Sellers' amazing ability to assume different identities. First up are 3 Barclays Bank commercials - each one lasts a minute and sees the actor play a cockney geezer with no business sense and even less integrity. Meanwhile, the 3 TWA commercials run for a minute apiece and Sellers plays a different international stereotype in each one. A 4 minute 'TWA Commercials: Behind The Scenes' featurette is also present on the disc, serving as a contemporary look at the filming of the airline adverts.

Some extras relating to the famous pink panther cartoon character have also been stowed away on this sixth disc for fans. First up is the 11 minute 'Behind The Feline' featurette, which is a succinct retrospective look at the creation of the famous character and the hugely successful cartoon it appeared in. No less than six of these classic cartoons are also available to the viewer, adding a further 38 minutes of viewing to the disc.

The video extras finish with a static 'Shots In The Dark' photo gallery on this sixth DVD, followed by theatrical trailers for all five films on their respective discs. The colourful menus are presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound - the screens for the first and last DVDs are also animated.

Thankfully, we were fortunate enough to be supplied with the custom foldout digipack packaging and accompanying colour collector's booklet for this review. The digipack features impressive artwork yet is very conventional mechanically, while the booklet inside is quite short but better than most of the counterpart guides accompanying MGM releases.

Overall, this is a thoughtful selection of extras that does justice to the legendary series of films. The only major disappointment is the lack of commentaries and subtitle trivia tracks for the four sequels.

Feature 8/10
Video 8/10
Audio 6/10
Extras 8/10

Overall 8/10

DVD Bulletin

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