"Inspector Jacque Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is put on the case when the Pink Panther diamond is stolen, with the Phantom's trademark glove the only clue."
The Return of the Pink Panther is a 1975 comedy film and the fourth film in The Pink Panther series. The film stars Peter Sellers returning to the role of Inspector Clouseau for the first time since A Shot in the Dark (1964), after having declined to reprise the role in Inspector Clouseau (1968). The film was a commercial hit and revived the previously dormant series and with it Peter Sellers' career.
Herbert Lom reprises his role as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus from A Shot in the Dark; he remained a regular thereafter. The character of Sir Charles Litton, the notorious Phantom, is played by Christopher Plummer. David Niven, who played the part in The Pink Panther (1963), was unavailable. The Pink Panther diamond once again plays a central role in the plot.
Reception
Critical reception
In The New York Times, Vincent Canby gave the film a positive review, writing, "Clouseau is the very special slapstick triumph of Mr. Sellers and Mr. Edwards."
Variety called it "another very funny film about the eternal gumshoe bungler, Inspector Clouseau. 'The Return of the Pink Panther' is in many ways a time capsule film, full of brilliant sight gags and comedic innocence."
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4, finding Sellers' first scene funny but for the rest of the movie, "we not only know when each and every joke is coming; we know exactly what that joke will be."
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was "I think, not up to what went before. Its calculations show and the inspector is somehow too entirely the buffoon, lacking a redeeming pathos I seem to remember from the earlier outings. But in its vigorous and bulls-eye way 'The Return of the Pink Panther' is a cheerful escape from all the things that ail us."
Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a frequently hilarious and generally satisfying return to comic form on the part of Peter Sellers, recreating the role of the hapless but dogged French sleuth." Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker wrote that Sellers was "working here at his best."
The film holds a score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7 out of 10.
Box office fiscal reception
The film grossed $41.8 million in the United States and Canada and $75 million worldwide: Gross!!!
This is the one where Sellers plays a smooth night club playboy, and in the restaurant orders "Kahlua with Ginger Ale". (I'd gone with Tonic, had I been Edwards or Sellers...)
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