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The Pink Panther Movie Review

The Pink Panther is a 1963 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Peter Sellers and David Niven. It is at first a plodding and then a wildly entertaining comedy.

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“Any more behavior like this and I’ll have your stripes!“

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It follows inspector Jacques Clouseau as he attempts to catch a notorious jewel thief before he can steal a titular princess diamond. This is the first film in the Pink Panther series and the most serious of the bunch. There is one big problem here and that is the first half. It is obviously inferior to the much superior second half as its pace is excruciatingly slow.

The entire first half of the movie plays out like this James Bond movie with some of Hitchcock thriller elements sprinkled in for good measure. Although I like all these elements and I appreciate the elegant, classy 60s style of the movie like most others, the lack of excitement and humor in this section really did grind the film to a halt. The romantic elements were overplayed and the movie was maybe even too 60s for its own sake.

But the second half changed all of that and the movie became truly great later down the line. The humor before that was only present in smaller slapstick tidbits with Clouseau stumbling over furniture being repeated throughout. It was never funny to begin with. But then they suddenly included situational comedy as well as silly, over-the-top humor full of chaos and both were excellent and actually quite timeless as many of these scenes can be appreciated even today. So yes, the film is both dated and timeless at the same time, which was interesting.

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The highlights are the hotel room situational comedy and the costume party. The former was stupendously orchestrated in its every moment with all of the men hiding from Clouseau in progressively funnier manners. This was the culmination of the storyline of his adulterous wife and it really worked and made the previous too long build-up worth it.

The latter section is also excellent as seeing all of these silly costumes was a lot of fun and the chaos that erupted was hugely entertaining. The car chase scene was absolutely brilliant with the older man watching in disbelief and amusement being the most instantly iconic scene from this movie. The ending is also incredible and unexpectedly brutal in the treatment of Clouseau and his fate.

The Pink Panther is gorgeously shot with the Bond style present throughout – the clothing is elegant, the performers look good and the interiors are lovely. The score is also fantastic, especially when focusing on the iconic Henry Mancini Pink Panther theme that accompanied some scenes tremendously well. The Panther himself got a great opening and ending credits in the classic cartoon slapstick style.

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The acting is one of the film’s highlights. Claudia Cardinale is as stunning as always in the role of the princess and very likable and charming. Capucine was quite memorable as Simone Clouseau and Robert Wagner was solid as George, though less memorable. David Niven is per usual effortlessly suave and fun, but Peter Sellers steals the show from him. That wasn’t meant to happen, but it did, and thus they changed the course of the series to reflect on the character’s sudden popularity. He plays this buffoon inspector with a lot of confidence.