Trail of the Pink Panther

Starring:Peter Sellers, David Niven, Herbert Lom, Richard Mulligan, Joanna Lumley, Capucine, Robert Loggia, Harvey Korman, Burt Kwouk, Graham Stark, Peter Arne, AndrÃ© Maranne, Ronald Fraser, Leonard Rossiter, Marne Maitland, Harold Kasket, Liz Smith, Danny Schiller, Denise Crosby, William Hootkins
Director: Blake Edwards
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

The Pink Panther Film Collection (The Pink Panther / A Shot in the Dark / Strikes Again / Revenge of / Trail)

Average customer rating:

Hilarious!
Review of The Pink Panther Film Collection
Purchased as a gift
Pink Panther Film Collecton
What's not to like about Peter Sellers?

The Pink Panther Film Collection (The Pink Panther / A Shot in the Dark / Strikes Again / Revenge of / Trail)
Starring: David Niven , Peter Sellers , Robert Wagner , Capucine , and Brenda De Banzie
Director: Blake Edwards
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Comedy | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( P ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Return of the Pink Panther
The Party
Being There
The Pink Panther (Special Edition)
The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection

ASIN: B0001AG01M
Release Date: 2004-04-06

Amazon.com essential video

Cue the Henry Mancini music and watch out for Cato--the gist of the Pink Panther series has been gathered in a six-disc boxed set. At the center of it is Peter Sellers's incarnation of inspector Jacques Clouseau, a hopelessly bumbling detective with a genius for resting his hands in the wrong place (on the surface of a spinning globe, for instance) and mangling the English language.

Writer-director Blake Edwards cast Peter Ustinov as Clouseau in The Pink Panther, but Ustinov dropped out just before shooting began. Edwards (who recounts this story in a spotty commentary track included here) and Sellers bonded over their affection for Laurel and Hardy, and immediately transformed the character of Clouseau into a walking sight gag. The first film has a delicious swinging sixties vibe, while jewel thief David Niven, Claudia Cardinale, and Capucine occupy as much screen time as Sellers. Sellers really hits his stride in A Shot in the Dark, an elegantly funny tale of Clouseau sleuthing out a murder investigation. This one introduced Herbert Lom, as the increasingly frazzled Inspector Dreyfus, and Burt Kwouk, as Clouseau's houseboy-nemesis Cato. Sellers and Edwards, whose relationship was stormy, put Clouseau aside for over 10 years, until a trilogy of mid-1970s comedies restored the character to commercial (and dare we say cultural) primacy.

Unfortunately, the very funny comeback picture, Return of the Pink Panther, is absent from this set due to rights issues with the studios involved. The Pink Panther Strikes Again has Dreyfus going bananas and targeting Clouseau; Revenge of the Pink Panther puts Clouseau in a hilarious series of disguises, climaxing in a wonderfully mounted sequence in Hong Kong. (Throughout the series, the calm, classical staging of gags by Blake Edwards reminds you of what a lost art this has become.) Trail of the Pink Panther looks better now than it did when originally released in 1982, shortly after Sellers's death; it's a batch of unused Sellers routines from previous pictures, strung together with a loose plot. In other words, it's a "deleted scenes" extra, and quite funny at times.

Subsequent efforts Curse of the Pink Panther and Son of the Pink Panther are neither included nor mentioned. A half-hour documentary gives pleasant memories from Edwards, but feels incomplete. The cartoon Panther gets his own 11-minute mini-doc, plus six cartoon shorts including the Oscar-winning "The Pink Phink." --Robert Horton

Description

Disc 1: THE PINK PANTHER Disc 2: REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER Disc 3: THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN Disc 4: A SHOT IN THE DARK Disc 5: TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER Disc 6: BONUS DISC

Customer Reviews:

Hilarious!.......2007-05-09

Just 4 stars. The missing one is for the missing "The Return of the Pink Panther (1974)". If you are looking for extreme and healthy fun, no one could it be better than Sellers to pop ups your laughings, he was great doing any role. This is a delicious collection, just improve the one buying the missing "..return", and of course..."The Party"

Review of The Pink Panther Film Collection.......2007-01-17

It is absolutely first class entertainment. It is intelligent, witty, silly, "classy" - something we rarely achieve these days. Gather your family and give them an education in how to develop a keen sense of humor or, even better, invite your friends to watch - don't forget the martinis.
LGP

Purchased as a gift.......2007-01-13

My dad was always talking about how he wanted this boxed set on DVD since he found out it existed. Christmas rolled around and he hadn't mentioned it in a while, so I surprised him with it and he was thrilled. The set is very nicely packaged, very high quality, and looks very nice. Also, my dad was pleased to see a couple of the lesser known movies (he said two are very common on TV but the others you hardly ever see). He's very happy with it, and I am very happy with my purchase. Well worth the money!

Pink Panther Film Collecton.......2007-01-10

The package arrived in excellent shape and the DVD's are all perfect. If you like the Pink Panther its a great buy.

What's not to like about Peter Sellers?.......2007-01-06

Fun to watch and relive these fine films on a nice wide-screen plasma TV. It will take you back to a more innocent age. Hard to watch if you are using a 27" tube set however.

Average customer rating:

Cool!
[Two stars out of Four] Average, but still funny. Niven's last film...
Passable Panther
Strange Panther
A Guilty Pleasure

Trail of the Pink Panther
Starring: Peter Sellers , David Niven , Herbert Lom , Richard Mulligan , and Joanna Lumley
Director: Blake Edwards
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Slapstick | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Farce | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Comic Criminals | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Revenge of the Pink Panther
A Shot in the Dark
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Return of the Pink Panther
Curse of the Pink Panther

ASIN: B0009S4J32
Release Date: 2006-01-31

Description

Inspector Clouseau, the lovable buffoon with a knack for mispronunciation, is MIA! The terrificallytalented Peter Sellers "induces gales of tonic laughter" (The Hollywood Reporter) in this wild adventure co-starring the full Panther ensemble cast, including David Niven, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk andCapucine, along with newcomers Joanna Lumley, Richard Mulligan and Harvey Korman. The Pink Pantherdiamond goes missing - and then en route to the scene of the crime, Clouseau's plane goes missing! A sleuthing reporter (Lumley) is assigned to memorialize the fabled detective, but in the process, she comes up against some strange behavior from a delirious Dreyfus (Lom) as well as Clouseau's duplicitous ex-wife (Capucine), his lusty father (Mulligan) and The Phantom (Niven)!

Customer Reviews:

Cool!.......2006-11-20

Although some people think that this is hurting Peter Sellers' memory, it is still pretty good. The first half of the film is made up of unused footage from The Pink Panther Strikes Again. The second half is a reporter named Marie Jouvet talking to people that Clouseau has come into contact with. That includes Hercule Lajoy from A Shot In The Dark, Cato from multiple movies, Clouseau's father, and Sir Charles Lytton from the original Pink Panther film. This isn't my favorite Pink Panther film, though. The Pink Panther Strikes Again is my favorite out of all the ones that I've seen. Iv'e seen The Pink Panther, A Shot In The Dark, Inspector Clouseau, The Return Of The Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Revenge Of The Pink Panther, this one, and The Pink Panther {2006}. This film has a great cast. Peter Sellers as Cheif Inspector Jacques Clouseau {archive footage}, David Niven as Sir Charles Lytton, Herbert Lom as Dreyfus, Richard Mulligan as Clouseau's lusty father, Joanna Lumley as Marie Jouvet, Capucine as Lady Lytton, Robert Loggia as Bruno Langois, Harvey Korman as Auguste Balls, Burt Kwouk as Cato Fong, and Graham Stark as Hercule Lajoy. I'm only going to say one part from the film. At the beginning of the opening credits, it says, "To Peter, the one and only Inspector Clouseau." That was my review.
Jedi404

[Two stars out of Four] Average, but still funny. Niven's last film..........2006-08-09

R.I.P. David Niven, you were a gentleman.
As for Lom and Sellers they are both get-
ting long in the tooth for these type of
roles. Sellers would try one more time,
but a fatal heart attack would finish
him off in 'The Search for Clouseau'
starring Ted Wass, which would turn out
to be Lom's last film. Followed by an
awful Steve Martin remake in 2005 (*)
w/ Beyonce Knowles of Destiny's Child!

Passable Panther.......2006-06-15

The problem with many long-running series is that after a few entries everything seems like old material. In "Trail of the Pink Panther", it literally is.

Director Blake Edwards attempts to make one more Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau movie, despite the fact that Peter Sellers died before the movie began filming. To accomplish his goal, Edwards weaves deleted scenes from previous Pink Panther films with newly filmed "plot" scenes to try to create a coherent story about Clouseau picking up the trail of the Pink Panther diamond one more time.

Halfway through the movie, Clouseau is conveniently declared missing, and a nosy reporter investigates Clouseau's life. She tracks down characters from the series and gets them to tell their stories about Clouseau, providing a clothesline to hang highlight clips from previous films on.

It's easy for anyone who's seen the other films to tell where the archive footage, even the deleted scenes, come from. All of this adds together to create an uneasy feeling of déjà vu for the viewer.

There are some original scenes in which the reporter interviews Clouseau's father, leading into some interesting (and funny) flashbacks to Clouseau's childhood. Even this, however, fails to take away from the feeling of watching the kind of "clip show" common in long-running TV shows. And when a TV show does a "clip show" episode, it's either a finale or the show's jumped the shark. (Think of the final episode of "Seinfeld." This entire movie is the Pink Panther equivalent.)

While the movie could be a good overview or introduction to the series, it's simply not as enjoyable as watching the individual movies themselves and seeing the jokes in their proper context. Even the new or previously unreleased material pales in comparison to that of the earlier movies. And while a "Best of" disc is something of an enjoyable novelty, it's understandable that this movie flopped. I can't fathom why anyone would pay money to see it in theaters.

Not to say that this movie doesn't have its place. For Pink Panther completists, this movie is like a bonus DVD. But like most DVD bonus features, this movie isn't one that will be watched often. For anyone other than completists, this movie is definitely skippable.

Strange Panther.......2006-03-01

This movie starts out very good and is really funny. Then half way through it, Inspector Clouseau's plane becomes missing and so does Inspector Clouseau. A TV reporter looks for him but never finds out what happened to him or the plane. This is Peter Seller's last film as Inspector Clouseau but it is a very strange one indeed. At the end you see Clouseau from the back (you never see his face) looking out over an ocean and that's it!

A Guilty Pleasure.......2006-02-28

Despite the fact that the first 30 minutes of this film were made up from unused footage and the like of Peter Sellers as Clouseau, these sequences are some of the funniest and most outrageously humorous from the PINK PANTHER series.

The remainder of the film follows reporter Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley) as she sets a trail to find the whereabouts of the missing Inspector Clouseau. In doing so she ultimately interviews most of Clouseau's acquaintances from both sides of the law. During these scenes we are treated to highlights from the previous films in the PINK PANTHER series and the feeling is one of endearing nostalgia.

David Niven as Sir Charles Litton, Burt Kwouk as Cato, Capucine as Lady Simone Litton, Robert Loggia as Bruno Langois, Graham Stark as Hercule Lajoy and Andr? Maranne as Sergeant Francois Duval are all present. Eventually Joanna Lumley meets Clouseau's father innovatively played by Richard Mulligan in a very memorable comic setting at the Clouseau estate.

Perhaps this film was assembled to keep the PINK PANTHER series alive and rake in a few quick dollars at the box office. It is sort of a guilty pleasure for me.

In the final analysis and most importantly, the driving force in the entire film is Herbert Lom as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus. His brilliantly perfected performance with neurotic moments of strife and glee in reaction to the inept Clouseau, present or not, is the singular cohesive element that keeps this film afloat and perhaps a reason to keep PINK PANTHER series alive as long as it did. A guilty pleasure? Yes, but a happy one.

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Natural World Collection

Road to a Greek Wedding

Return of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 5: The Musgrave Ritual/The M

DVD: How to Use a Microscope DVD

Crimebusters