A year after resurrecting the Pink Panther film series with The Return of the Pink Panther, Blake Edwards delivered another instalment. The 1976 comedy The Pink Panther Strikes Again, although commercially successful, was in many ways inferior to the previous film.
The plot features one of the series' regular characters as the main antagonist. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (played by Herbert Lom), a French police official, has spent three years in a psychiatric hospital after being driven to homicidal insanity by the ineptness of his subordinate, Inspector Jacques Clouseau (played by Peter Sellers). The therapy almost works, and Dreyfus is ready to return to society and his old job, but a brief visit by Clouseau is enough for him to relapse. He later escapes and, using his deep knowledge of the criminal underworld, quickly acquires money and builds an organisation to carry out his diabolical plan to rid the world of Clouseau once and for all. His cohorts kidnap an English scientist, Professor Fassbender (played by Richard Vernon), and his daughter. Clouseau is brought in to investigate and, while he does so, the scientist is forced to build a powerful and immensely destructive device. Dreyfus uses it to destroy the UN Building in New York and later blackmails the world’s governments – they have seven days to assassinate Clouseau or face even greater destruction. Clouseau somehow manages to locate the broad whereabouts of Dreyfus in Bavaria, but, before he can do anything about it, he must evade dozens of the world’s top assassins.
The idea of turning a frustrated French bureaucrat into a full-blown Bondian villain might have looked outrageous on paper, but Herbert Lom makes it work by delivering a powerful and often unrestrained performance, almost becoming the main star of the film himself. Sellers, despite having a series of problems with his physical and mental health during the production, nevertheless delivers another good performance, especially in the memorable scene during which his character desperately tries to penetrate the castle. The film’s pacing in the first part is better than in previous instalments. However, Edwards’ original idea to make this film as a 1960s-style comedy epic was rejected by the studio, and the film was consequently shortened. As a result, The Pink Panther Strikes Again looks a little bit unfinished, especially in the second part. Those scenes also feature Lesley-Anne Down, who serves as nothing more than eye candy in the role of a Soviet female assassin, and her character’s sudden infatuation with Clouseau is never properly explained. The film also hasn’t aged well. Many of the jokes are directed at mid-1970s audiences, and future generations would have problems understanding them. The best example is in the characters of the US President (played by Dick Crockett) and Secretary of State (played by Byron Kane), too obviously modelled after Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, who had been in office during the time of production. The high quality of acting, some truly funny scenes, and another good musical score by Henry Mancini, including a simple but catchy theme, make The Pink Panther Strikes Again work as solid entertainment despite these flaws.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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