Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)

Journalist Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley) attempts to uncover the mysterious disappearance of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers).

Director:

Blake Edwards

Writers:

Blake Edwards (story), Frank Waldman (screenplay)

Stars:

Peter Sellers, David Niven, Herbert Lom

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Peter Sellers	...	Chief Insp. Jacques Clouseau (archive footage)
David Niven	...	Sir Charles Litton
Herbert Lom	...	Chief Insp. Charles Dreyfus
Richard Mulligan	...	Clouseau's Father
Joanna Lumley	...	Marie Jouvet
Capucine	...	Lady Simone Litton
Robert Loggia	...	Bruno Langois
Harvey Korman	...	Prof. Auguste Balls (archive footage)
Burt Kwouk	...	Cato Fong
Graham Stark	...	Hercule Lajoy
Peter Arne	...	Col. Bufoni
André Maranne	...	Sergeant Francois Duval
Ronald Fraser	...	Dr. Longet
Leonard Rossiter	...	Superintendant Quinlan (archive footage)
Marne Maitland	...	Deputy Commissioner Lasorde

Storyline

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French television reporter Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley) sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau. Each interviewee: Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), Sir Charles Litton (David Niven) and Lady Simone Litton (Capucine) (an ex-wife of Clouseau), George Lytton (Robert Wagner), Hercule Lajoy (Graham Stark), and Cato Fong (Burt Kwouk) tell of their run-ins with Clouseau. She is also kidnapped by mobster Bruno Langlois (Robert Loggia), who doesn't want Clouseau found, but she continues and finds Clouseau, Sr. (Richard Mulligan), Clouseau's father. Is Clouseau alive or is he dead? Each interview has not-yet-seen or famous clips from the previous movies (since Peter Sellers died) as Marie continues to get a honest view or impression of the great French ...

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Plot Keywords:

jewel thief | false nose | wig | wastebasket | sprinkler | 

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Taglines:

There is only one Inspector Clouseau. His adventure continues...

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Mystery

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Certificate:

PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

Filmed at the same time as Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).

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Goofs

The Pink Panther has been stolen again. Clouseau is looking at the newspaper "Le Figaro" where everything is written in French, except the top of the article is titled in English.

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Quotes

Prof. Auguste Balls: [leaving Cato a voicemail] This is Professor Auguste Balls of Paris, you Oriental picaroon. You can't fool me about a plane crash. He is hiding to avoid payment. Unless I receive 4,000 francs by Friday, I'm suing. And you can put that in your opium pipe and smoke it, you conniving Cantonese.

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Alternate Versions

All UK cinema and video versions were cut by 21 secs by the BBFC to remove the nunchaku footage previously edited from The Pink Panther Strikes Again. The cuts were fully restored in 2003.

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Connections

Referenced in Stars of the Silver Screen: David Niven (2014)

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Soundtracks

You Go To My Head
Lyrics by Haven Gillespie
Music by J. Fred Coots

User Reviews

Jumped-up TV special

Cut 45 minutes of filler material and this would make a nice little hour-long network retrospective and a decent tribute to Peter Sellers. It mostly plays that way anyway, with a "plot" which is simply dropped halfway through, serving only as one of the framing devices to introduce the Sellers clips. The other framing device, a reporter's series of interviews with Clouseau's associates, is so inanely written and obviously "tribute-y" that it's shocking to remember that this was a theatrical feature film.

And that was Blake Edwards' major mistake. Some of the unused footage is amusing, but if it had been up to Sellers' usual hilarious standard, it wouldn't have gone unused. And the flashback sequences are made up of, well, flashbacks--scenes which we already saw in the previous movies. On a TV special, that would have been fine. Here, it just makes you wonder what Edwards could have been thinking.

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 December 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Trail of the Pink Panther

Filming Locations:

Valencia, Spain

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,341,695, 19 December 1982

Gross USA:

$9,056,073

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$9,056,073

Company Credits

Production Co:

United Artists, Blake Edwards, Titan Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1