TRAILER: The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Why are the world's chief assassins after Inspector Clouseau? Why not? Everybody else is.

Inspector Clouseu is back in the fifth and arguably funniest installment in the Pink Panther franchise: The Pink Panther Strikes Again. All of the gang are back in the most violent and outlandish film in the series. The crazy plot centers around Clouseu’s former boss, Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), going insane and creating a doomsday machine that will destroy the world unless someone kills his ultimate white whale: Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseu.

Released directly on the heels of Return of the Pink Panther, Strikes Again is one of those sequels that assumes its audience is already familiar with the films that preceded it, allowing it to dive right into the familiar antics of its hilarious collection of characters. The film is full of the slapstick destruction gags that director Blake Edwards was so fond of, and Peter Sellers was never funnier as the world’s dumbest detective. It almost plays like a violent Chuck Jones cartoon at times, particularly during a sequence where Clouseu tries to gain entrance to a castle via a drawbridge. Also features the funniest of the Clouseu vs. Cato battles, this one full of hilarious slow motion effects and sounds.

No other Pink Panther film before or after offered up more belly laughs than this entry. Check it out and try and prove me wrong.

Zevk,
Poe