INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU
US, 1968, 96 minutes, Colour.
Alan Arkin, Geoffrey Baildon, Delia Boccardo, Patrick Cargill, Susan Engel, Frank Finlay, Barry Foster, Beryl Reid.
Directed by Bud Yorkin.
Inspector Clouseau was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Peter Sellers’ character, created in The Pink Panther and continued in A Shot in the Dark. Peter Sellers, apparently, expressed dislike of this character. However, during the 1970s he appeared in three sequels: The Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Revenge of the Pink Panther. Blake Edwards, who directed the films, also made The Trail of the Pink Panther and The Curse of the Pink Panther with outtakes from Peter Sellers’ work. Not content with this, he also made Son of the Pink Panther, with Roberto Benigni, fifteen years before he made Life Is Beautiful.
In 2006, Steve Martin appeared as Inspector Clouseau in an updated remake of The Pink Panther – to rather universal criticism that he was not like Peter Sellers. (Audiences would have a chance to see another interpretation of Inspector Clouseau in seeing Stephen Hopkins film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers where Geoffrey Rush, as Sellers, travels in a plane to Rome, unwilling to be Inspector Clouseau but, going to the toilet, emerges impersonating the inspector in an interaction with a flight attendant. It is a very good impersonation of Sellers’ Clouseau.
Alan Arkin was criticised at the time for this performance. However, if people did not know the Peter Sellers performances, they might enjoy Alan Arkin’s performance. At this time he was a popular star and made a variety of films including The Fixer and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He is supported by a largely British cast.
The film was directed by Bud Yorkin who worked mainly in television but during the 1960s made a number of very popular films including Come Blow Your Horn, Never Too Late, Divorce American Style.
1.A good comedy? Its chief merits as comedy: characterisation, plot, situations, dialogue? Alan Arkin’s performance?
2.How successful a robbery film? Using the genre of the big planned robbery and its execution? How did it satirise robbery films? The parody with the use of the masks? How well did the robbery genre blend with the comedy?
3.How successful the plot, conventional or did it use conventional material well?
4.How important was the portrayal of Inspector Clouseau for the success of the film? Was the portrayal consistent? Alan Arkin’s qualities? The two-dimensional tone of the humour and self-assertion? The three-dimensional tone of his final confession to Lisa?
5.How ingenious was the robbery sequence with its use of the Clouseau masks? How skilfully was the plan communicated and worked out?
6.The successful satire on the British? On Inspector Braithwaite, Patrick Cargill’s style, the English subordinated to the French, the English style of gentleman confronting the villains?
7.Was Weaver a convincing villain? Did the film explore his character or merely present him as a villain? Relationship with Clouseau, the gang, his wife?
8.Did the film provide a satisfying gallery of villains? Johnny Rainbow, the haircut and cheekiness, controller of the operation? Addison Steele and the literary allusion of his name? the other minor criminals?
9.How well was Elise’s part integrated into the plot? Spying on Weaver, Interpol, on the barge, her love for Clouseau?
10.What values of comedy did Mrs Weaver add to the film? Beryl Reid’s Scottish parody? A suitable ending?
11.How humorous were the various situations that Clouseau was in, in jail, at the fair, the train, the barge? What made these situations comic? What qualities of film comedy did the film best illustrate?
