Trail of the Pink Panther

In compared to movies that have a beginning, middle and an end, "Trail of the Pink Panther" barely qualifies as a real movie. On a bad day it's a crass, sluggish, desperate and entirely unnecessary entry in what was a pretty well-worn series featuring the irreplaceable Peter Sellers.

Co-writer/Director Blake Edwards, whose 80's pendulum film-making talent swings from the very great ("Victor/Victoria", "S.O.B.", "That's Life") to the deplorably awful ("Blind Date", "A Fine Mess", "Skin Deep", "Sunset" among other casualties) goes back to the well to fashion the barest of linking "plot" segments to bring to life trims and deleted scenes from the previous entries in the long-running series.

These links are rather sloppily matched/handled and pretty obviously shot: a lumpy double for Peter Sellers in long walking shots, David Niven's awful looped vocal by Rich Little (!) of all people, the trials of matching the costumes of films more than six years previous (watch those lapels, guys!).

That said, what other movie has your very last chance to see Peter Sellers as Chief Inspector Clouseau at work? It is, in a weird way, a cheapjack "tribute" to the genius of Sellers and a ghostly valentine to the entire series - the very same set-ups, the former castmembers - and is best seen as such.

Feel free to turn the film off after the first 45 minutes, and then resist the urge to watch either "Curse of the Pink Panther" (1983) or "Son of the Pink Panther" (1993). But, if you're a die-hard "Panther" fan, that warning probably comes too late.