Curse of the Pink Panther is the second concurrent Pink Panther sequel Blake Edwards put out following Peter Sellers’ death. It builds upon Trail of the Pink Panther, which is an immense problem because Curse asks that its audience retains memory (and affection) for a clip show, retrospective assembly which could hardly be called a feature length film. The same problem dogs this Panther (whose “Curse” title intentionally beggars comparison to the lesser Universal horror sequels). Edwards is desperate to somehow proliferate his once-great franchise, but without a single solid notion for how to do it.
Curse makes its weak and feeble argument by proposing a new character to fill in for Sellers’ MIA Inspector Clouseau, but we aren’t there yet. Instead, a little stage setting to get us up to speed: That same damn robbery of that same damn Pink Panther diamond opens Curse as it did Trail. Damn it.
Then comes an inexplicable little scene, complete with coldblooded murder, which won’t mean anything until the final 20 minutes.
And animated titles.
Then Curse simply trails Trail, down a listless and uninvolved groove where the members of the French Sûreté endlessly relay the fact that “Clouseau has vanished.” Yes, Clouseau has vanished, but repeating that fact over and over and over AND OVER does not effectively replace the gaping, Sellers-shaped hole he’s left. It’s all so much retread.
Pity poor Herbert Lom, who is again asked to stretch his Charles Dreyfus character thinner than ever, after The Pink Panther Strikes Again did all you could with the part. Because the French media is absolutely agog about Clouseau’s absence, even if Trail’s “star” Marie Jouvet never shows up, Dreyfus has been charged with finding a Clouseauian successor who shall find the missing moron. Oh yes, it’s all “meta” to talk about “replacements” when your movie is doing just that, but it ain’t as clever as Edwards thinks. It’s not the early days of cinema, after all, and filmic comedy had rather evolved beyond Edwards’ form – which has staled and slowed with the years.
Dreyfus, desperate to prevent Clouseau’s return at all costs (he hates the galling Gaulic goof), rigs the high-tech 1980s computer programmed to select a world-class detective. It seems the tact of Curse is that, rather than recasting the Clouseau role (for the most part…see later), it posits a new hero to carry the abandoned comedic brunt Clouseau once bore.
As this nouveau Clouseau redux, Edwards originally wanted Dudley Moore, having worked with him on 10 and some other movie. But Moore (er, this particular Moore) preferred to waste his time making an awful sequel to Arthur instead.
So Edwards proposed Rowan Atkinson, who was rejected for being unknown outside of England.
Instead they went with Ted Wass, who was unknown everywhere.
Wass is worthless in his role as NYPD Sergeant Clifton Sleigh, a man chosen by Dreyfus for being as totally klutzy as…well. But the man is a complete blank slate. Not only does he barely get a proper introduction, in the same sense that we never got to know Alan Arkin’s Clouseaux. It’s more that Wass does nothing whatsoever to differentiate his performance, to make it stand out, to be even remotely memorable. Oh sure, Clifton does bungle his way through a series of (poorly-staged) bungling slapstick set pieces, in an effort to maintain the same watered-down style of silent comedy the franchise was founded upon, but Clifton is not an interesting character.
Compared to the eccentric and oft-impenetrable French accent of Clouseau, Clifton merely employs a flat and baseline American voice. Okay, he is an American, but give us something. Whereas Clouseau approached all scenes with a false air towards sophistication, class, you name it, Clifton is endlessly reminded of his own incompetence. Hence we have an unsure and unappealing little turd, a policeman who is an ass and realizes it. Any potential comedy by way of contrast is thus assassinated in its sleep.
It’s surely unfair to directly compare Clifton against Clouseau, as he is not Clouseau, but ostensibly a “new” character. The problem is Curse so adamantly insists upon that reading. Clifton investigates the life of Clouseau, leading him through many of the same character bits from the latter third of Trail – not that they fare any better this time. All the series regulars – and I mean all of ‘em – keep on asking if Clifton is related to Clouseau, if Clouseau would have done the precise same pratfall Clifton just did, ad nauseum. You know, there’s a way to do a proper sequel while dramatizing your former star’s absence. It’s called The Godfather: Part II, and comparing Curse to that is even crueler than comparing Clifton to Clouseau.
There is little in terms of defining traits for Clifton. He wears glasses and something resembling a straw hat – Considering Edwards’ love of old silent slapstick, I’d call it the Harold Lloyd look (as opposed to Clouseau’s rather unique look that – Okay, I’ll stop!!!). Too bad Clifton’s favored baby blue suit merely makes him a grotesque, a figure of ridicule, never relatable as it seems he ought to be.
There’s some attempt at getting Clifton on our side, what with talk of his multi-generational family of New York police officers, a legacy he’s done nothing so far to live up to. This Clouseau case is his big chance. Now…if he succeeds, and brings Clouseau back to the Sûreté, well…the franchise isn’t gonna recast Clouseau that way, it isn’t. So Clifton is destined to fail, to Dreyfus’ likely glee (though Dreyfus does eventually try murdering Clifton, ‘cause that’s a tired joke that just will not die). The franchise demands such an outcome. Indeed, he does fail, ultimately delivering a false and baseless assumption about Clouseau’s death. This undercuts whatever “dramatic” effort had been made to let Clifton succeed.
It’s a shame this new character is so rancid – No, wait, “rancid” is not the right term. That implies anger on my part, or an emotion of some sort. No, Clifton (and Curse as a cursed whole) inspire nothing but apathy, complete indifference as I silently watch it play out, myself as stone-faced as the Buster Keaton this series has sometimes alluded to. It’s a shame because here Edwards had a marvelous opportunity to create a brand new comic creation, a character to last forever like Clouseau even while pioneering an entirely new persona. We get no persona, and otherwise just the reheated remains of Clouseau’s comic capering eight films old.
Clifton is not helped by how unenergetic the rest of the effort is. With certain exceptions, the Pink Panther series has grown less and less layered with time, losing comic density as it goes on – in a post-Airplane! era where one expects both quality and quantity in one’s humor. Speaking of Airplane!, what is with Edwards’ obsession with inflatables? Yes, Strikes Again had a funny gag about an over-inflated hump (and ego), but roughly half of the “jokes” surrounding Clifton concern one thing or another which is full of gas. It’s like Airplane!’s Otto, told with the hope audiences would have no memory of that particular ingenious ZAZ gag.
This particular fixation includes an off-brand blow-up doll Clifton hauls around the south of France. Apparently, it’s supposed to resemble a real-life, human female. One accepts a little leeway in believability, as even Clouseau’s most “successful” disguises never fooled anyone. And it seems Clifton’s doll cannot even fool the extras; I love the two ladies in the background in this café scene, who cannot keep a straight face in light of Clifton’s many, many minutes of doll mugging. Not that he’s being funny, oh Lordie no, but they simply cannot believe the stupidity they’re on the edges of.
Not only is Airplane!’s Otto the obvious inspiration for…uh, let’s say Dolly – it’s no less uninspired that what Edwards would’ve called it. Curse even reuses the “inflation resembles oral sex” joke, only now with cunnilingus replacing fellatio. One hopes there’d then be some risqué humor to the proceedings, but even now it all seems so toothless. How do you make a cunnilingus joke feel toothless?! (Vagina dentata subtext completely unintended…)
And once Clifton’s bit with the doll is over, he leaves the café, as though he weren’t there for any further reason whatsoever.
Anyway, outside of pratfalls and car chases which take entirely too long (Edwards’ leisurely paces are becoming an increasingly big problem), the token plot tissuing this together is equally desperate. Even when it’s just Clifton seeking Clouseau and/or the Pink Panther. Part of his quest takes him to see Sir Charles and Simone Lytton, allowing David Niven and Capucine to earn their names in lights one more time. Credited even above Wass, that’s how forgotten he is. And Robert Wagner’s George Lytton is here too, for the first time since The Pink Panther. Once again, none of these “leads” even bothers to stand from their seats.
These people simply tell Clifton what his plot shall be. Oh, there’s a health spa in Valencia, Clouseau might be there, go there and do a thing because we surely aren’t about to. Some plots simply send their heroes from scene to scene, but this is beyond the pale!
The ostensible villains of the piece are no better painted. Bruno Langois (Robert Loggia) returns from Trail, but with even less explanation. No, he simply appears with no introduction, and his name never even uttered. Needless to say, Langois’ motive for wanting first Clouseau, then Clifton dead is a little suspect. Further twists reveal his crime syndicate had nothing to do with the initial burglary of the Pink Panther, meaning he simply wants these bozos to die because they’re the good guys, or some such. I’m the villain because I’m the villain, and I’m uninteresting to boot!
Not that Langois’ assorted goons, mooks, henchmen and hitmen have any efficacy. Nearly every set piece not owing directly to inflated humpable dogs or ducks (I sense an unpleasant animal sex vibe here) is instead engendered by flailingly incompetent assassination attempts. We’ve seen the “duck to pick up a nickel, avoid the gunshot, which kills another killer instead” gag, oh…twenty times in the franchise. (This is a generous, non-exaggerated number.) More than ever, Edwards leans upon it here. Such a series devolution!
Then the villain subplot is resolved with an astounding lack of fanfare. For reasons I’d rather not real with, Clifton and a random blonde femme fatale (Leslie Ash) face the entirety of Langois’ gang (including Langois) in a Spanish back alley. They all fight, as Edwards seems to confuse normal self defense with slapstick. Clifton defeats the mass of mobsters, without using incompetence (or any other identifiable trait)!
Then it’s back to a hotel room with the blonde for a desultory seduction scene, one which Clifton rejects. This happens simply because the last several Panthers (other than Trail, for obvious reasons) did similarly at the starts of their Third Acts too. There is no joke here, no cleverness, no attempt to tie in the blonde with the rest of the story. (For as little attention as my disinterested self paid, I don’t think she is even explained…eh, she is British, though).
It occurs, in light of the alleyway scene, that Edwards’d’ve done well to cast someone other than Wass in the lead. Someone who at the time was just starting to marry silent comedy with physical adeptness. Someone who’d even play into Edwards’ obsession with Asians. I’m talking about Jackie Chan, and I simply present this paragraph to posit what the world would be like had such a thing occurred.
Third Act begun, the villains are already defeated. So…what now?! Clifton as useless as ever, the three Lyttons return to redirect him towards that same health spa they’d already mentioned. They even tow him there on a parasail, Dreyfus endures pratfalls of his own attempting to murder Clifton with a freaking bazooka (!!), nothing here merits further examination. Except for Wass’ dreadful performance, where it’s assumed loud, grating, nasal screaming is the height of hilarity.
…You know, from shots I’d seen prior to watching Curse, I feared Wass’ character would be a variation on Jerry Lewis – what with the series’ Franco-centric perspective. A little come out in Wass’ worst points, but things could’ve been much worse.
No matter, Clifton crashes directly into the health spa, and into the clutches of Countess Chandra (Joanna Lumley returning from Trail, but in a new role, because to hell with continuity). Also here is [drum roll please]…Inspector Clouseau!
Edwards gives up on his maxim to never recast Sellers, but in doing so he actually creates the one slightly amusing moment in all of Curse. In James Bond terms, we’ve seen the multi-movie triumph of Peter “Sean Connery” Sellers, and the one-film horror of Alan “George Lazenby” Arkin, we now get a third actor in the form of…Roger “Roger Moore” Moore.
Taking a brief break from Octopussy, Moore plays against his suave, debonair fop to do something…well, not that close to Sellers, not with the odd new voice and obsession with the word “swine,” but an interesting against-type bit of clumsiness nonetheless. And because a) Closueau’s characteristics are legion and amusing, and b) Roger Moore is actually a good performer, his cameo is Curse’s lone grace.
One amusing cameo and a few desultory physical jokes. A movie needs more than that…
Clifton is fed false information from Moore’s Clouseau – whom he takes for the real Roger Moore (though his name is never mentioned, in order to obscure the gag) – which he takes back to Dreyfus. This info suggests Clouseau did take on a new plastic surgery identity, but not as the third James Bond. Rather, Clifton falsely believes Clouseau became one Gino Rossi – the jerk that died in the pre-titles. Anyway, Rossi is dead, so Clouseau is thought dead. Dreyfus retires happy (though heavily bandaged), and Clifton is sent back with “honor” to New York – where we’ll never hear from him again!
There is an explanation to this confusing conclusion, but it is not offered up by the movie itself. Rather, good ol’ Wikipedia plotted Curse better than Edwards did. They don’t even say (in-film) that Rossi was the guy from 110 minutes ago, so you just gotta be able to connect faces. Oh, and it was Rossi who stole the Pink Panther diamond…And now Clouseau (as Roger Moore) has bedded up with Chandra as a criminal, happy to keep the diamond for himself. Which is such a dumbass conclusion to this franchise-long hero! It betrays so much of what Clouseau was about! And the Pink Panther is stolen from Clouseau in the conclusion by the Lyttons, because – Oh to hell with this movie!
That’s some complicated plot stuff at the very conclusion. Not that the non-plot stuff does any better. Rather than intentionally fashion Sergeant Clifton Sleigh into the series’ savior, with many more sequels to his name, instead Curse is the one and only time we’ll be seeing Wass’ stupid ass. Curse of the Pink Panther was the series’ long-time-coming franchise killer. It proved once and for all audiences had no more use for Blake Edwards’ unfortunate miscalculations re: comedy.
Not that audiences were beyond the simple (yet hard to do) slapstick pleasures The Pink Panther once boasted. Consider Lieutenant Frank Drebbin of The Naked Gun a little later in the decade… (That, incidentally, is another ZAZ product, suggesting how truly they’d usurped Edwards.) A bumbling police detective running through a genre pastiche, failing at every step yet somehow triumphing…yes, even the basic DNA of Clifton solid. But The Naked Gun was put together with ambition, zeal, zest, things Edwards was running most short of in his autumn years.
The inept investigator genre proliferates onwards in Clouseau’s absence, more often using secret agents in favor of cops. From Clouseau’s original ‘60s era we have “Get Smart,” and its ’80s cartoon counterpart “Inspector Gadget.” Later on in the ‘00s there occur Austin Powers and Johnny English and probably some other crap. And while this comic form continues, this Panther had had its day. Though Edwards wasn’t quite through yet…
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Pink Panther (1963)
• No. 2 A Shot in the Dark (1964)
• No. 3 Inspector Clouseau (1968)
• No. 4 The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
• No. 5 The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
• No. 6 Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
• No. 7 Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
• No. 9 Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
• No. 10 The Pink Panther (2006)
• No. 11 The Pink Panther (2009)
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