Starring Alan Arkin, Frank Finlay, Patrick Cargill, Beryl Reid, Barry Foster, Clive Francis, Susan Engel

(5-Okay Film)

Nondescript. Misguided. Mediocre.

Inspector Jacques Clouseau: There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them.

Inspector Clouseau, as played by Peter Sellers, is an iconic comedic character. Inspector Clouseau, here, played by Alan Arkin, is adrift in obscurity. Following the success of the first two Pink Panther movies, studio execs decides to make a third one without Sellers or its director, Blake Edwards. In this one-off performance, Arkin’s Inspector Clouseau is invited to England by Scotland Yard to solve a string of robberies and, at the same time, weed out a potential mole who may be aiding them from within. A fine premise with potential for an intriguing mystery soon devolves into an episodic venture into uninspired slapstick. The director, or maybe the writers, have no handle on this material and no idea what made Blake Edwards’/Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther films work. Alan Arkin is left on an island to make this film funny and to make this film work and that’s unfair to any actor. He ekes out some laughs because he is funny, but the film around him is not interesting.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(1,116)