Another One Like Him

"How long have you been a Princess, Your Highness?"
"All my life."
"Oh, that's a long time to be anything."


Judging the end of a great director’s career is usually not an enjoyable task. I always think of Howard Hawks’ RIO LOBO. In some ways, it seems like one of his films, it has elements familiar from his films, but if you have a desire to defend it as a good film based on some sort of adherence to the auteur theory, you’re going to find yourself doing some bending over backwards. Sometimes this becomes difficult. Because with great directors there’s sometimes a limit in how far you can bend. For Blake Edwards, SON OF THE PINK PANTHER is that limit.

In the decade following CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER, Edwards directed eight features, an impressive clip for any filmmaker. These films vary all over the map in quality but even the worst titles among them contain a certain amount of zip that bear the mark of the director. A good example is 1991’s SWITCH, which has a weak story that falls apart by the one-hour mark but it has a fantastic lead performance by Ellen Barkin and there are moments throughout which feel like vintage Edwards.


For several years before making SON, Edwards had pursued returning to the PANTHER universe, with names such as Gerard Depardieu and Rown Atkinson mentioned to play the offspring of Clouseau. But the honor finally went to Italian comic Roberto Benigni, who was best known in America, if at all, for the arthouse hit JOHNNY STECCHINO and appearances in several Jim Jarmusch films. In addition to the expected supporting players, the script called for the return of the character Maria Gambrelli, unseen since A SHOT IN THE DARK, who would be the mother of Clouseau Jr. Instead of the expected appearance by Elke Sommer in the role, the part went instead to Claudia Cardinale, who actually played Princess Dala back in the original PINK PANTHER in 1964. Following a screening of A SHOT IN THE DARK several years ago at the American Cinematheque, someone asked Elke Sommer during a Q&A about this film. She confirmed that she had been approached to reprise the role of Maria Gambrelli but it wasn’t something that interested her, not with Peter Sellers gone. She then asked the person, “How was it?” He hemmed and hawed and Sommer offered, “It was shit, wasn’t it.” Which got a big laugh. I won’t go as far as Sommer’s speculation but the sad truth is that SON OF THE PINK PANTHER, which opened at the very end of August 1993, feels like a balloon with all the air let out. It’s a rather lifeless piece of work, suggesting the possibility that Edwards wasn’t totally at the helm during production and then had it further taken away during editing. It’s a real shame because there really does seem to be an idea somewhere here, but the movie never feels like it knows what it is.

Princess Yasmin, the daughter of the King of Lugash, is kidnapped in Nice, with one of the ransom demands being that he abdicate his throne. Commissioner Dreyfus is assigned to investigate but, after a coincidental fender-bender with the kidnappers, encounters a local police officer named Jacques Gambrelli who displays certain strange quirks that cause a familiar twitch to return to Dreyfus’ eye. Curious, he seeks out the officer and after meeting his Gambrelli’s mother learns the truth: that Jacques Gambrelli is the secret offspring of his late nemesis Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Compounding this is that, after the traffic accident, Gambrelli was the only person to get a good look at the princess and can identify that it was her in the van.


By the time Roberto Benigni actually appears, about one-sixth into the film, you almost wonder how many people have given up already. SON is the only film in the series without a pre-credit sequence, something that would have come in useful to bring us up to date and start things off with a jolt of energy. Compounding this is the re-do of the main theme, performed by Bobby McFerrin, a version that I’ve never liked. The opening section of the film is devoted to the kidnappers plotting and pulling off their plan which feels aimless and poorly directed. It’s also strangely dark and violent—in fact, many of the scenes throughout the film involving the kidnappers feel like they belong in a different film. The tone is never well-established and it feels like the wrong emphasis is constantly being placed on elements that never really matter.

Benigni and Herbert Lom’s Dreyfus turn up at the same point, but it feels like these characters are denied a proper introduction. As it stands, the characters are simply there and the bad plotting of Dreyfus involved in a car accident with the kidnappers doesn’t help matters. In a 1992 Army Archerd column, Robert Wagner implies that there was a version of the script that included the character of George Litton and it’s a shame he got written out. It’s easy to imagine that the Pink Panther diamond would have figured in with the plot which would have helped matters since the kidnapping of the princess feels strangely under-plotted and over-convoluted at the same time. Ultimately, various plot tangents, such as the shenanigans involving the throne of Lugash, feel truncated and by a certain point they seem to just fall out of the picture.



One of the few real points of interest in the film is its treatment of the character of Dreyfus. More sympathetic than he has ever been before, at first he seems to show interest in Gambrelli more out of curiosity than anything else. The character in this film comes off as more of an Edwards surrogate than ever before, as if the director is trying to find some sort of peace with the memory of the great comic actor he once worked with. As Maria Gambrelli, the luminous Claudia Cardinale provides the movie with a surprising amount of depth and soul, something I’m not sure would have come from Sommer (the events of SHOT are, no surprise, never referenced). I’m much more aware of Cardinale’s place in film history than I was when I first saw this film—that’s what multiple viewings of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST get you—and her presence here in relation to her appearance in the first film in the series seems somehow meaningful to me. Her role in THE PINK PANTHER even gets referenced when, presented with a picture of Yasmin, she muses, “Not bad for a Princess.” The thing is, soulful depth and sentimental acceptance of the past is not the sort of thing that SON OF THE PINK PANTHER necessarily needs to provide. There should be laughs and the film is sadly lacking in them.


Roberto Benigni provides the film with most of the energy that is there and he works tirelessly at it every moment he’s onscreen. His basic persona means that he wasn’t going to be a clone of Sellers’ Clouseau and he could have worked in a movie that was better. But he does a good job. Debrah Farentino as the Princess is gorgeous and also gives the impression that she could have displayed a real spark if the film were better. As it is, her character is too erratically written for it to add up in the end—is she rebellious, assertive, a spoiled brat? It’s never entirely clear. Lom seems older, but works well, in this slightly different version of his character. There’s a cute round-robin of “What?”s to various pronunciations of the word “bump” early on. There’s a funny moment where Benigni, impersonating a doctor, stands in front of a hospital and yells “Ambulance!” as if hailing a cab. Bit player Natasha Pavlovich gets a laugh as a belly dancer in a Lugash nightclub. There’s also some funny destruction caused by Benigni is the nightclub scene. Maybe there are a few other small chuckles here and there. There’s some nice Scope use. I’m trying to be generous here.


Robert Davi plays the main bad guy, yet another element of the PANTHERs that recalls the Bond films. Jennifer Edwards is one of the kidnappers, as is character actor Mike Starr, who seemed to be in every other film in the early 90s, including GOODFELLAS and ED WOOD. Anton Rodgers, very funny in DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, is wasted here in a similar role as Gambrelli’s Police Chief—the joke that the character is blatantly trying to foist Gambrelli onto Dreyfus is lost in the shuffle. Herb Tanney is there as the Police Chief’s assistant, billed as “Sputare Tanney”. Burt Kwouk gets decent screen time as Cato in the final third (by that point, his presence is very welcome) but it would seem that André Maranne sadly died before this film was made, so another actor plays someone named “Francois”. Graham Stark again plays Auguste Balls—the character of his assistant does not appear, but his wife Martha, again played by actress Liz Smith, does, even thought she had previously only been seen when Balls was played by Harvey Korman. There—I can’t prove any better that I’ve been paying way too much attention to these movies lately.


With a running time of only 93 minutes and scenes that seem to haphazardly start and stop throughout, there has to be a fair amount of footage that was deleted, but who knows what difference it would have made. One early trailer contained a scene where Clouseau enters a building that promptly blows up (a discarded prologue for a pre-credit scene?) and also some footage of a celebration taking place at the Clouseau statue which is seen later. The soundtrack album contains music that may go here and it’s also possible this would have been the introduction for Dreyfus, getting flustered in the middle of a celebration for the late detective. The cast list also includes a listing for “Clouseau’s Ghost” but no such apparition appears in the final film. And the opening credits feature prominent billing for Shabana Azmi, who is apparently a huge star over in India but her small amount of screen time here (I’m presuming she originally had more to do, but in a 2004 interview she mentions only working three days on the film) make it seem hardly worth the trouble.


Henry Mancini provides a delightful score, with a very good theme for Gambrelli and an exciting action climax, which contains a particularly enjoyable burst of trumpets at one point. And thankfully, the classic Pink Panther theme is allowed to return and make one last appearance over the closing credits. This would sadly be his last film score before dying of cancer less than a year later and I suppose it looks like SON will be Edwards’ final film as well. It isn’t exactly a high point in their collaboration but there’s something about their final film works both together and separate being this film that lends the entire series a sense of completion. This, combined with the character arc of Commissioner Dreyfus seemingly standing in for Blake Edwards’ acceptance of who the man known as Peter Sellers was, means that I can’t look at SON OF THE PINK PANTHER with a great deal of animosity. It’s not much of a defense, but maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe it just has to be a movie that is strangely fitting to view at the end of August. The series of films comprising the world of the Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau as originated by Blake Edwards, Peter Sellers and their collaborators will live on and any attempts by others to capitalize on it will always pale by comparison. If anything, that’s a thought to end summer on.

Completely Legitimate

According to the novel THE GODFATHER, Connie Corleone’s wedding takes place on “the last Saturday in August 1945”. I’m not sure if it ever gets any more exact than that, but this bit of chronology makes the end of the month the perfect time to revisit THE GODFATHER yet again. Not that there’s a point in the calendar that isn’t ideal to revisit the film, but I’m going to choose to read something into it: THE GODFATHER begins in late August, so in some ways what you need to do should begin in late August. Time to get your act together. Otherwise, by the time Christmas comes around you just may yourself being garroted at a bar just after being offered some pre-war Scotch. All right, the metaphor doesn’t really make sense. It doesn’t matter. “I can’t have this conversation again,” said Tony Soprano once, when Paulie asked him what his favorite scene was. But moments later Tony is reminiscing about it anyway. THE GODFATHER does that. Sometimes you need to return to THE GODFATHER.

The important news is that THE GODFATHER has been given the full 4K restoration treatment by Robert A. Harris. Despite a theatrical re-release in 1997 and DVD box set of the trilogy in 2001, Harris would comment in interviews about the terrible shape the film was in—there’s a 2000 interview with The Onion, where he refers to the state the film was in as being “a mess…THE GODFATHER was butchered by the laboratories. It was handled horribly, like a piece of garbage”, something I’m sure was a factor in this occurring. It’s a fair statement to make that this restoration marks a hugely important event for cinema.


Though I only know as much about the making of THE GODFATHER as I’ve read in various books and articles published on the subject, repeated viewings of the film (I’ve seen it countless times on cable, tape, DVD along with four or five theatrical viewings) has made it seem more and more as if there were technical issues always involved with the physical production, maybe indicating how much was repeatedly redone in the cutting room. Some shots that didn’t seem to cut exactly right, some scenes that seemed looped after the fact, that sort of thing. This is not an issue of quality, so much a growing awareness of a film that had problems in the making and it occasionally flows over into the final product. Maybe some of this had to do with the generation of prints that I was seeing and with the inferior film stocks that were the norm during this period of the 70s.

Seeing the film in this new version screened at the Paramount Theater on Melrose Tuesday night, those problems feel less present than ever before. The colors pop off the screen, the darkness feels richer. It’s not a case of making the film look more slick—that’s not what THE GODFATHER is about. But it now looks more like the film that it is supposed to be. Even a few minor issues have been dealt with; there’s a close-up of Diane Keaton late in the film, when Al Pacino shows up at the New Hampshire school she teaches at looking for her, that has always looked misframed, as if there was a lab error. For a long time I’ve wondered, is it just me or does that shot look wrong? I suppose I have my answer, because the shot now looks framed correctly. For the record, there have been no alterations or extensions to the film, with the exception of a new Paramount logo and additional restoration credits during the end crawl. With THE GODFATHER, changes are not necessary.


Here’s one minor issue with the film: in the opening scene, just after the first shot of Brando, I found myself noticing the sound of birds chirping on the soundtrack. After trying to sort out this bit of audio, I began wondering, how can we hear birds? Isn’t the wedding taking place outside? Then, when the door to Vito Corleone’s study opening for the first time, letting the sounds of the festivities in, I realized for the first time in numerous viewings how the audio for the opening moments seemed very carefully calculated. Later scenes in the study during the wedding let the music bleed into the room, but not letting us hear the sounds during the opening moments, while not totally logical, is actually rather brilliant. Which makes the sound of chirping birds in the first scene of the film all the more annoying. After that, it was hard not to hear them throughout during sections set at the Corleone compound. I checked my DVD and the I did heard the birds in some scenes…but not when Brando is first introduced. That said, much of the sound work throughout is impeccable—even things I had heard many times before, like Sterling Hayden’s first line of dialogue (“I thought I got all you guinea hoods locked up!”) shoots out with a tone and force that is genuinely startling. And many of the gunshots during the baptism montage have a force like never before, particularly when Moe Greene gets it in the eye. On the DVD it feels like a pop—now it sounds like a ricochet into my skull. That my biggest complaint with this restoration is the sound of birds chirping in one scene has to say something about the level of care and artistry that went into this endeavor.

There’s very little I could say about THE GODFATHER which hasn’t been said before except for personal observations, something I’ll do another time. For now, I’ll simply say that the film remains as great as it is. THE GODFATHER is one of those films which remind you that the idea of film as an art form can be something worth fighting for. And now, it’s time to get my act together.

Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

"Is that Sleigh as in kill?"
"No, it's Sleigh as in One Horse Open."


Blake Edwards' CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER opened in August 1983, just a few weeks after the death of top-billed star David Niven. An Inspector Clouseau movie with no Clouseau, the film was following a series entry that did not do well at the box office and still contained the stigma brought on by the understandable hostility that it was a film which was essentially unnecessary. The reviews weren’t good and it didn’t do anything at the box office. That was that.

While TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER offered scenes of Dreyfus pouring his heart out to his psychiatrist about Clouseau that could be read as Edwards’ feelings about Peter Sellers. That angle is mostly ignored here, taking Dreyfus’ fear and hatred of Clouseau as a given. Throughout CURSE, several characters offer up the old saying, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” turning it into a bit of a running gag. The phrase is never uttered by Dreyfus, but it stands out as possibly Edwards’ warning to himself, how he should accept his past relationship with the great comedian and simply move on. He didn’t listen to himself.

But here’s the honest admission: I like CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER. And I’m fully aware of how that sounds. But the movie is now 24 years old and to me it’s fully acceptable to judge it on its own terms. The film doesn’t always succeed, but it continually plays like a movie made by somebody who obviously understands comedy construction, which has become more of a rarity in this day and age. There’s no defending why this movie was made but there are reasons to defend the movie.

One year after the events of TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER, Clouseau is still missing. The President of France orders Dreyfus to head up a task force to find him. The plan, is to program a new super-computer to find the world’s greatest detective who will then find Clouseau. Dreyfus, of course, sabotages the computer, programming it to do the exact opposite of what it is told. After Dreyfus reads out instructions to find a cop with such attributes as “Fearless, courageous, a born leader…” the computer, looking for the opposite, gives them Officer Clifton Sleigh of the NYPD. Sleigh arrives and, within minutes, Dreyfus is given cause to wonder if “Clouseau had any releatives in the states.” The trailer for this film, which ran before OCTOPUSSY, stressed the super-computer portion of the plot and I remember thinking, in that summer which also contained WARGAMES and SUPERMAN III, it seemed like every film was using a computer in its plot. Fortunately, once Sleigh is introduced his character takes center stage.

After the humdrum non-events of TRAIL, CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER plays like a more energetic film from the get-go. Even the expository scenes with Dreyfus and Francois at the beginning play sharper this time around, even though they were probably shot concurrently with similar scenes in the previous film;even some dialogue gets repeated. Maybe everyone rightly felt that this was the “real” movie of the two and saved their best stuff for this footage.


Dreyfus dominates the first twenty minutes, but once Sleigh enters the scene the movie becomes all his. Given an “and introducing” credit in spite of the fact that he had already starred on TV’s SOAP, Ted Wass plays Clifton Sleigh. Done up to blatantly resemble Harold Lloyd, Wass was clearly fighting a losing battle in playing this role but comes off as willing and eager in the part. It’s a nice parallel to how the character, as clumsy as he is, genuinely wants to prove himself with this assignment. Now that we can watch the movie without having to compare him to Peter Sellers, I think he actually works very well.




It’s the structure that I like best in this film. Maybe Edwards was all too aware that he would not have an improvisatory genius like Sellers this time around, so he plotted it out to the second. Even with a running time at about 110 minutes, the movie doesn’t feel like it has a wasted second to me. To a great extent, it’s the beats that I notice. One recurring joke that seems like an Edwards signature comes as Robert Loggia ‘s mob boss is trying to plot Sleigh’s assassination. We have the mobsters discussing it underscored by Mancini, then we cut to the (disastrous) attempt, then we cut back to Loggia and his crew in a different location, still casually discussing it underscored by Mancini. It’s a rhythm unique to Edwards in his movies and works very well here. Sexual confusion in the series continues even as we introduce a new lead. A TV reporter quizzing Dreyfus harps on whether or not a woman will be considered by the computer and though the choice is “a man”, as she puts it, the instant we cut to Sleigh for his introduction he’s going undercover dressed as a woman. Later in the film, Sleigh has to be rescued from a possible mob hit by a woman and the film’s very final twist has an action taken by a certain female character, that seems to indicate some sort of thematic completion. What all this is supposed to amount to in the end I’m not sure but it seems…interesting. At the least, it continually appears to be something on Edwards’ mind.


That said, there’s plenty that doesn’t work. Sleigh’s introduction, while thematically interesting, isn’t really all that funny. Harvey Korman’s return as Professor Balls doesn’t do much for me, nor does the funning gag about the “Instant Companion” that Sleigh is supplied with. And Burt Kwouk’s Kato has less to do than ever before. I freely admit this is a strange case—enjoying a comedy more for its precise construction that for the actual laughs that happen. As we follow Sleigh from New York to Paris to Lugash to Nice to Spain, it’s a continually interesting production visually. The car chase in Nice is also very good—is it shot in some of the same locations as the chase in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN?—and once we get to Valencia the film becomes consistently enjoyable to me. The carnivale in that section resembles the similar setting of THUNDERBALL and it’s hard not to think that Edwards amused himself by having the bad guys follow Sleigh by having to jump and dance along with everyone in the crowded street. Sleigh saying “I sound like Stan Laurel,” as an attempted seduction takes place still doesn’t make any sense to me, though. The investigation moves to Majorca and Sleigh follows the trail via parasail to a health spa run by the mysterious Countess Chandra where he discovers…well, I won’t give it away but it does provide justification for the trailer running before OCTOPUSSY.


In addition to Lom, Kwouk, Korman, Loggia, André Maranne, David Niven and Capucine we also get the returning Robert Wagner, playing George Litton for the first time since 1964. Beats me why he didn’t appear in the previous film, since the stuff was obviously shot at the same time. Maybe they agreed to only pay him for one movie. Maybe he absolutely refused to appear in the talk show-type scene in that film. Either way, Wagner gets the prize for most bored-looking celebrity cameo here. For the record, Capucine offers “It looks like suicide,” upon seeing Sleigh take part in the parasailing, somewhat unfortunate considering she killed herself several years later.


Other interesting faces turn up throughout. Joanna Lumley returns, this time as Countess Chandra, playing one brief nude scene covered in mud. Graham Stark plays a bored waiter during the Instant Companion sequence. William Hootkins again plays the cab driver in Nice, his American accent this time acknowledged, but unexplained. Then-first daughter Patti Davis plays the French television reporter, Joe Morton is a New York cop and the great Bill Nighy is seen very briefly as an ENT doctor. Pat Corley, who later played Phil on MURPHY BROWN, is very funny is his one scene as the Dreyfus-equivalent in New York to Sleigh’s character and British actress Leslie Ash makes a definite impression as the mysterious woman Sleigh meets in Valencia who calls herself Juleta Shane (a name I once stole for use in a script). There’s also the actor who is credited simply as Turk Thrust II, but again, I won’t discuss that.

Henry Mancini’s score is also very good this time around, lending an early 80’s synth feel to the main theme that also seems to emphasize the CURSE in the title. The Clifton Sleigh theme also blends in well with the surroundings, with a sneaking around-version that closely recalls the James Garner sneaking around music from the previous year’s VICTOR/VICTORIA. Unfortunately, this is the only PINK PANTHER to never have a soundtrack release.


As eager as Wass comes across, the film must still deal with the spectre of Peter Sellers on its shoulder. In fact, the Sleigh character seems slightly discarded at the end so it can deal with such plot necessities. The final scene comes off as an attempt to bring the entire series full circle, back to 1964’s THE PINK PANTHER, which is a bizarre idea considering the lack of continuity through the films. But it does give the impression of a sense of completion. Maybe that’s what Blake Edwards was going for. While I like some of this film, I'm very well aware of what it is I'm defending. Unfortunately, the one-two punch of these post-Sellers PANTHER films may have been a detriment to his career. He certainly continued making films at a surprising rate through the rest of the decade, but critically he never again reached the heights of “10”, S.O.B. and VICTOR/VICTORIA. In trying to continue the series without the presence of Peter Sellers, it’s very possible he forgot that he was very much looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Something That Isn't Happening

With the imminent arrival of Tim Lucas’s long-awaited tome on Mario Bava, I decided the time was right for another look at FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON. The waning days of the particular month always seem like the right time to watch it, anyway.


1970’s FIVE DOLLS would never be the first Bava film that I'd show to somebody unfamiliar with the director—that would be DANGER: DIABOLIK, or maybe even BLACK SABBATH. But FIVE DOLLS always plays to me unlike any other film ever made. Whether that was entirely intentional is another question. And it’s a difficult film to properly summarize since portions of it still don’t seem to make any sense. Why does the houseboy’s body get discovered twice? Why doesn’t Marie tell anyone when she discovers the body? Who is Isabelle anyway? Maybe one reason I find myself continually drawn to it is the hope that eventually I’ll figure out a few of these things. Maybe if I consumed as much J&B as the characters seem to, it would help. Maybe someone can answer these questions. It doesn’t matter. I have too much fun watching it anyway. But really, who the hell is Isabelle?


With a basic plot similar to Agatha Christie’s TEN LITTLE INDIANS, the film presents us with several couples vacationing on an island, staying in a beach house owned by one of them. One of the guests is a scientist who has recently perfected a formula that we hear nothing about, except that it’s for a “new type of industrial resin.” Though checks for a million dollars are being waved in front of him, he expresses no interest in selling the formula, saying it’s for the good of mankind. Soon enough, murders begin occurring, raising the question of who wants the formula and who wants the money. But meanwhile, lots of drinking continues to occur.


As many of the deaths occurr offscreen, the film comes off as a sort of bizarre comedy of manners more than a horror film. The continued feeling of ennui of the main characters presents promise of an interesting scenario—hey, Antonioni’s making a slasher film!—and it would have been interesting if the film had gone even further in that direction. At one point a character states, “Everyone seems to be waiting for something that isn’t happening,” which is a great line, one of the best in the film. Fittingly, it’s uttered only a few moments before the onslaught of death begins. “Houseboys come and go, but there’s always a bottle,” is another key line, appropriate considering how the characters seem more occupied with drinking themselves into a stupor than figuring out who the murderer among them is.


It’s well known that Bava took on this project with very little notice, but it’s tougher to tell exactly what his intentions were. While some, including Lucas, have speculated that the zoom-crazy party that opens the film is emblematic of Bava’s “contempt” for the film and its production, enough of it remains sloppily written to the point that maybe the director should have been focusing his attention on other matters. But every now and then there's a moment, a shot, a sequence, that stands out. The continued use of color is something I continually find myself paying attention to throughout the film. As it is, I’m still a little in the dark on some of the plot turns.


The quasi-futuristic house is one of the things that draw me back to this film for repeat viewings, as are the performances. Yeah, it’s safe to say that the amazing Edwige Fenech walks off with the film at least in part by her own pure physicality. But several of the other actors, particularly Ira Furstenberg as Trudy, are very good and each of them seem to ‘pop’ in various ways that add to the film’s unique feel.


But the thing I suppose I love about this film most of all is the amazing lounge score by Piero Umiliani. Remembered mainly for composing the song “Mahna Mahna” which was later made famous by the Muppets, Umiliani’s work here provides much of the same bouncy, infectious feel, only the music here is designed to underscore an allegedly grim tale of murder. From the dialogue-free first moments of the party that opens the film, to the carnival-like bounce used whenever the various corpses are continually hung up in the meat locker, to the transcendent moment where Edwige Fenech runs along the beach after discovering the first corpse, Piero Umiliani’s music for FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON makes it something more than it would have been otherwise. When I first saw this film, on a bootleg tape, back in 1995, the first thing I said to the room was “If anyone ever finds this soundtrack, let me know.” Several years later in Tower Records on Sunset I found myself staring at the Japanese CD. It was priced at something like 35 dollars, but I took the plunge. I’m glad I did and the score for this film was probably crucial in my burgeoning interest in the lounge scores of this era.


I’ve sometimes daydreamed about remaking FIVE DOLLS and who could play some of the roles. Certainly a similar setting could be used and the music would of course be the same. But any possible rewrite would have to clear up some of the gaping plot holes and I’m not sure that the scenario could withstand such logic brought to it. Maybe it’s just best to let this film be. FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON brings up an interesting question of what is “good” in a film. There’s the issue of quality, of structure, of what is “well done”, ideas that are thrown out the window the instant the first zoom occurs during the party. But in the case of this film, I don’t care. Maybe it’s romanticizing a different era and genre, but FIVE DOLLS is an unusual record of a film made under duress but displaying nothing but the joy of making movies behind it. I don’t love this film because it’s so bad it’s good. I love this film because I’ve never seen and heard anything else quite like it.

The Moving Finger Writes

Following the 1978 release of REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER there were plans for Inspector Clouseau to live on, but without the involvement of Blake Edwards. THE ROMANCE OF THE PINK PANTHER was a script that Peter Sellers had co-written and the film was in active development with names such as Sidney Poitier and Clive Donner mentioned as possible directors. The plot had Clouseau falling in love with a cat burglar named “The Frog”, to be played by Pamela Stephenson but the plans sadly ended with Sellers’ death on July 24th 1980, just a few weeks before the release of his final starring role, THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU. But surprisingly this would not mean the end of Clouseau.


Several years later, it was announced that Blake Edwards would direct not a new PINK PANTHER film, but two new PINK PANTHER films simultaneously, one that would use previously unseen footage of Sellers as Clouseau and one that would introduce a new character. Putting aside the issue of how prescient Edwards was in doing this, years before sequels to BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE MATRIX were made in such a fashion, it’s unclear exactly why Blake Edwards chose to extend the series. Even interviews from the time don’t really offer a good reason. It couldn’t have been the money—for simply licensing the use of the Pink Panther character for the aborted Sellers project he was paid $3 million by the studio. And certainly the director had reached a sort of creative peak at this time. Certainly after making “10”, S.O.B. and VICTOR/VICTORIA—a fantastic run to me—he had nothing to gain by going back to the PANTHER series. Maybe it was the challenge. Maybe he was offered creative freedom. Maybe it really was the money. Maybe it was a chance to claim total auteurship of the series once and for all. No matter the reason, the Christmas 1982 release of TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER (and its follow-up, which followed eight months later) was generally seen as an attempt to cash in on the memory of a beloved deceased comedian. And it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that Edwards’ critical reputation never fully recovered from the reception these films received.


TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER is made up of three types of footage: previously unseen Sellers footage, all new footage featuring other actors and flashback scenes from other films in the series. If you’re familiar with the films, it becomes clear that all of the unused footage seen here was originally shot for THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN. None of them are directly connected to any story, unlike the vast amount of plot-oriented scenes that were in REVENGE. What exposition there is during the first section is given by other characters when Clouseau is conveniently not around. This provides a rather aimless feel to the first third, after which it becomes something rather different. It can’t really be considered an elegiac film, since no one on screen seems particularly upset that Clouseau is presumably gone. And even if there is a small feeling of elegy, it doesn’t really seem right for the character of Clouseau to be handled this way. It’s as if there’s a hole at the center of the film, a hole that is the dead actor whose name is above the title and everyone seems to be doing the best they can to avoid mention of it. The basic story is a case of 97 minutes where nothing much happens, so there’s not very much of a story to summarize.

The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again. Clouseau is requested by the government of Lugash to investigate. Meanwhile, Dreyfus is still going mad from everything that Clouseau does. In the middle of yet another session with his psychiatrist, Dreyfus gets a phone call which possibly answers his greatest wish: Clouseau’s plane, heading for Lugash, is mssing, presumed lost in the sea. While elated, he is terrified that Clouseau may still turn up. Meanwhile, television reporter Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley) begins interviewing various people who knew Clouseau so she can learn more about him and his history. By the end of the film, no character has learned of the whereabouts of either Clouseau or the diamond.


And that’s pretty much it. Dreyfus gets paranoid that she will learn something, but nothing ever comes of it. The mob, led by Robert Loggia (playing a different part than in REVENGE) gets worried she will learn something, but nothing ever comes of it. It’s not even clear why an investigative reporter is interested so much in Clouseau’s past instead of investigating the circumstances of the missing plane. For that matter, if anyone is investigating the missing plane we never hear about it. Marie Jouvet is a television reporter who, like the newsreel man in CITIZEN KANE, does most of her interviews without any sort of camera. And there’s no Rosebud to be discovered here anyway. Maybe there’s a thematic idea behind having each respective interview take Jouvet further back in Clouseau’s past, but none of it results in anything very interesting.


The restored Sellers footage is ok, with some scenes naturally funnier than others, but I don’t think STRIKES AGAIN was hurt by losing any of this stuff. Harvey Korman’s appearance as Auguste Balls provides an interesting contrast with REVENGE, where the character was played by Graham Stark. One gets the feeling that by the time they did the latter version of the character they made it a point to move it along faster and the difference in performers reveals that Harvey Korman plays his scene as a special guest appearance, while Graham Stark manages to create a full comic persona out of the role.


Once Jouvet begins her investigation, the only Sellers we see from that point on are clips from previous films. It’s annoying enough when a clip show is done on TV but here we get the unusual sensation of watching a clip movie, which really isn’t that much fun. I like Joanna Lumley and there’s nothing wrong with what she does here, but since none of it can ever go anywhere it’s pretty ineffectual. Maybe her character is developed a little more than William Alland in KANE, but not much more. It’s Herbert Lom who gets some of the juiciest stuff to play here and he makes the most of it. As he sobs to his psychiatrist it’s tempting to look at Dreyfus as an surrogate for Edwards trying to deal with Sellers (more on this idea when discussing a subsequent film) and as far as the all-new footage on display throughout TRAIL, it’s Lom who gets most of the laughs. Richard Mulligan, on the other hand, plays Clouseau’s father in a sequence that seems designed to be the big show-stopper of the latter half of the film. I think that Mulligan is amazing in S.O.B. but here none of this stuff does anything for me. By the time this section rolls around, complete with portrayals of young Clouseau in flashbacks, it really feels like it’s time to close up shop.


Returning to the series for the first time since 1964, David Niven (famously dubbed by Rich Little as his voice was too weak by this point) is Charles Litton and Capucine is Simone Litton, both playing their scenes together as if on a talk show. Burt Kwouk is again Cato, but André Maranne, who as Francois gets to be the sounding board for Dreyfus, has some of his best material in the series this time around. Graham Stark reprises his A SHOT IN THE DARK role as Hercule Lovejoy and William Hootkins (Porkins in STAR WARS) plays the French cab driver whose American accent is never explained. Denise Crosby (at the time about to marry Edwards’ son Geoffrey, who co-wrote the script with his father) plays the moll to Robert Loggia’s character and is presumably doing a Jean Harlow impression. More surprisingly, Julie Andrews makes her only in-the-flesh appearance of the series, playing the silent role of a cleaning woman outside the office of Dreyfus’ psychiatrist, just before he takes a spectacular pratfall.

Various familiar character actors from previous films are glimpsed in small roles, including some from STRIKES AGAIN who also turn up in linking footage meant to help the plot along. The most interesting element of the Mancini score is that the album is, much like the film, a compilation of selections from previous films. It contains what I think is the only real release of the theme to A SHOT IN THE DARK and also my favorite selection from this film, “The Easy Life In Paris”, a lovely piece which would fit in perfectly with any Best-of Mancini compilation.

Ultimately, TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER is a movie that isn’t very much of a movie. The end credits contain a montage of Sellers highlights from the previous five films and it’s no great shock to say that it’s the funniest part of the film. The legacy of Peter Sellers is great enough that it can’t be hurt by this film, even if it was followed by multiple lawsuits involving his widow, Blake Edwards and MGM/UA. Stranger still is that a follow-up is promised at the end and, in spite of the first film’s box-office failure, was going to arrive in theaters. TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER may have marked the true, final end of Inspector Jacques Clouseau as the world knew him, but the universe his films are set in was not yet finished.

Here Already

In the early 90’s director Abel Ferrara made one of his few excursions into working for a big studio with his BODY SNATCHERS remake. Featuring a cast that included Gabrielle Anwar, Forest Whitaker and Meg Tilly, the film premiered at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. For whatever reason BODY SNATCHERS never got a real release as Warner Bros. let it languish on the shelf until it received a token dumping here in the States the following spring. Despite good reviews—Roger Ebert gave it four stars—and one sequence so powerful it caused a spontaneous wave of applause when I saw it opening weekend in Westwood, the film never got the exposure it deserved. It’s not perfect—at only 87 minutes, the structure resembles two acts and an epilogue, but years after seeing it much of the imagery still remains burned into my brain as the rare studio-produced horror film that even attempts to be genuinely unnerving.

So now the latest remake, this time titled THE INVASION, has had its own protracted post-production period and Warners has released it on over 2,700 screens. Which makes as much sense as anything in Hollywood. The directing credit goes to Oliver Hirschbiegel, but he was replaced late in the game by the Wachowskis who were brought in to supervise rewrites and reshoots directed by V FOR VENDETTA helmer James McTeigue. This doesn’t seem to be as extreme a case as the Paul Schrader/Renny Harlin/EXORCIST boondoggle of a few years back, but whatever the specifics are this final version of the movie is toothless and forgettable.


Edited and paced as if it’s going to be shown to an audience who has to get home early, THE INVASION is never exactly boring, but if there was a decent subtext in the material at any point it seems to have been lost. There is a stab in this direction with a “violence and self-interest makes us human”. Well, I watched plenty of Star Trek so I know that there are plenty of other things that make us human too. There are strong implications throughout from news clips seen that peace is beginning to spring forth throughout the world, including U.S. troops leaving Iraq. Exactly what the movie is saying here is something that I’m still trying to wrap my brain around. There’s also a stab at dealing with people’s dependencies on prescription drugs—Nicole Kidman plays a psychiatrist—but elements like this (at least in what has been released) aren’t half baked so much as they feel like they never got put in the oven.


Every version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is really about its subtext and how it relates to the time it was made in. Whatever subtext that can be found here is completely muddled and confused but it doesn’t matter anyway since the film is much, much more interested is spending a great deal of time spouting off pages of expositional dialogue about the nature of this virus and possible immunities to it. Much of this is spoken by Jeffrey Wright and rarely do you get to hear such a good actor speak this much horseshit dialogue in rapid succession. The pod person element is also completely dropped this time around, replaced by the aliens spreading themselves through projectile vomit, which takes effect when humans fall asleep. I suppose that pods were deemed cheesy and the nature of the vomit is an attempt to “up the stakes” and add an additional ticking clock but make no mistake, it plays as extremely, unbelievably stupid. Ultimately, THE INVASION isn’t about the world we occupy in the year 2007 as much as it’s about repeatedly giving us the specifics of the virus that the aliens are spreading. In other words, it’s about nothing.


Nicole Kidman’s face looks like she’s been smoothed digitally during post-production. I don’t know if this is the case or not but it gives her the most alien look of anyone in the film and I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else during the first twenty minutes. Daniel Craig is wasted. He shares screen time with Jeffrey Wright (James Bond and Felix Leiter reunited), but so what. Veronica Cartwright, a veteran of the 1978 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS has a featured role as one of Kidman’s patients but her big scene is frankly terribly written and sounds like it was ripped off from a speech Jessica Lange has in Scorsese’s CAPE FEAR remake. Maybe because of the urban setting, the film seems to echo the 70s version more than the others, with a re-do of Kevin McCarthy’s cameo from that film (not with McCarthy, but it’s pretty much the same scene) and a few other shots that had a familiar tinge to them.

I think THE INVASION is more bad than terrible—there are a few elements that stick out, like an unexplained shot of a teenage girl running sobbing down a sidewalk. But for the most part it’s a big nothing. At various points the film makes an attempt at additional flashiness, like opening the film with a sequence that occurs deep into the running time and another point where in the middle of a scene we flash-forward to what’s about to happen. These gimmicks serve no real purpose except to try to make it seem like there’s more going on than there actually is. If the film had ever figured out what it was, this sort of nonsense wouldn’t have been necessary.

Dating Public Television

I know why I couldn’t sleep last night, but I don’t want to talk about it. The act of lying there, close to midnight, knowing that I had to get up in less than six hours, just made me obsess all the more about the reasons I couldn’t sleep. That made it a lot of fun when I woke up this morning.

If a movie has a man and a woman confronting each other, trying to figure the other person out, I’m perfectly happy. The BEFORE SUNRISE-SUNSET films are, as I’ve said before, kind of this beautiful idealization of that scenario. Unforgettable as Celine in those films, Julie Delpy’s directorial debut 2 DAYS IN PARIS takes the opposite, darker approach to the basic subject matter and while it doesn’t come off as a total success I have absolutely no major complaints.


Shot with a Sony high-def digital camera, it’s a small, dark comedy about New Yorker Jack (Adam Goldberg) passing through Paris with his French girlfriend Marion (Delpy) so she can visit family and friends for a few days. Unexpectedly, he is confronted with many surprising aspects of who she really is. In addition to directing and starring, Delpy also wrote, co-produced, edited and composed the music. An actor who has worked with directors like Linklater, Kieslowski, Jarmusch, Godard (referenced here) and others she has clearly absorbed a great deal from the people she was worked with. Their influence is at times very much felt but 2 DAYS IN PARIS achieves its own darkly comedic tone. There’s also the obvious inspiration of Woddy Allen, who she sadly hasn’t worked with, felt here and Delpy seems to resemble a cross between Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow throughout the film. A degree of uncomfortable intimacy is refreshingly present in her film, even down to the character’s parents played by her own mother and father, who are both very funny in their roles (BEFORE SUNSET fans will recognize them as the older couple in the courtyard near that film’s end).


The ongoing battle between Americans and the French is addressed but it’s notable that one of the first things Goldberg does in the film is give bad directions to some Da Vinci Code reading, Bush/Cheney t-shirt wearing fellow Americans, as if he is defiantly striving to demonstrate how different he is from them. In some ways he is, but to everyone else he still an outsider with characters speaking in French (subtitled for us) to shut him out of conversations which causes his paranoia and his hypochondria to grow by the minute. Before going to a party, Jack attempts to decide between various types of sunglasses, trying to decide which one makes him look “more Godard”, but it’s futile. He couldn’t be more out of place and any attempts he makes to ingratiate himself with anyone tend to end in disaster. And as he witnesses more and more guys seemingly flirting with Marion the differences they share start to become both more complicated and much more simplistic then he first realized. It’s easy to imagine Goldberg’s character being not very relatable but I found myself identifying with him more and more. Maybe I need to think about why.


In writing this, I find myself focusing more on Goldberg’s character, but there are many aspects of 2 DAYS IN PARIS that are very strong, from it’s running gag about Parisian cab drivers to how unlikable Delpy allows her own character to be to the portrayal of her mother and father, that help the film dig deeper than the average MEET THE PARENTS sitcom. The bitterly funny moments throughout the first two-thirds are at times so sharp that it’s a slight disappointment when the film begins to be bitterly serious in its final section and I found myself losing my way with the film at some points here. Maybe it’s my own problem—even when she’s neurotic and bitchy she still comes off as someone who would be worth crawling over broken glass for. But like I said, I’m a little biased. I could say more on my feelings about watching people I can relate to who are in a relationship when I’m not in one. But I won’t. Don’t ask. Don’t.

Several years ago, I was walking in my neighborhood when a couple was approaching me on the street. As I glanced at them I realized the woman was Julie Delpy. I know that while I may not have done a double take, my face certainly displayed recognition. I would never have bothered her but I did give a slight nod since at that point it would have been rude not to. In response she said a quiet ‘hello’ and kept walking. I could hear her explain to the guy she was with that she didn’t know me, I was just somebody who’d recognized her. There. That’s my Julie Delpy story. I apologize to her for that moment and I applaud her for making 2 DAYS IN PARIS and any films I hope to see from her in the future.

A Few Diabolical Games

Through the years the late director Curtis Harrington served as host of salon-like parties at his home in the Hollywood Hills, where writer, actors, artists and other interesting people got the chance to meet one another. A social occasion serving as an outlet for interesting people is touched upon in Harrington’s 1967 suspense classic GAMES, which was recently shown at the American Cinematheque as a special memorial screening for the director who died in May. While he has achieved cult status for such films as NIGHT TIDE, QUEEN OF BLOOD and THE KILLING KIND, in addition to a great amount of work for TV, GAMES was one of his few successes for a major studio, in this case Universal. The film is unfortunately little-known today in spite of the fact that it features James Caan in a starring role. A DVD release has yet to happen so a chance to see it in full Techniscope is certainly rare.


Paul and Jennifer (James Caan and Katharine Ross) are a stylish Manhattan couple who revel in throwing parties for interesting people where they show off unusual artifacts and games they have acquired. An older French woman named Lisa (DIABOLIQUE’S Simone Signoret) talks her way into their townhouse one day and even though it is revealed that she is a makeup saleswoman, works her way into their lives and gets involved in some of the rather unusual games they play. But everything changes when one of those games has an unexpected result. To say anything more about the plot would reveal more than I should. There are elements that could have come from an Alfred Hitchcock Presents-type storyline, but it’s very clear that much of this is really inspired by DIABOLIQUE and, while being very conscious of this fact, especially in the casting of Signoret, it maintains its own originality.


The opening sections of GAMES feel slow and slightly awkward but once the plot gears begin clicking it takes on a genuine level of paranoia. I was also put into mind of various “rich people in villas terrorizing each other” made over in Europe around this time--of course, those were probably inspired by DIABOLIQUE as well, but GAMES ultimately doesn’t feel like any of those movies, maintaining it’s own icy feel to the end. Like the same year’s WAIT UNTIL DARK, much of it is set in a single New York residence but unlike that film it doesn’t share any theater origins and is very much a movie, one that couldn’t be set on stage without serious revisions.

Filmed on the Universal lot, GAMES does have the feel of other productions from that studio around the same time—that telephone ring is probably the one heard at the beginning of every ROCKFORD FILES, but no matter. The gradual build of true madness which overtakes the storyline allows its flaws to diminish. Even the final sting in the tail, which by the time you get there isn’t that unexpected, couldn’t have been done better and ultimately has a great deal of thematic resonance.


Simone Signoret looks considerably older and heavier than she did in DIABOLIQUE, made only twelve years before, but the eerie power of her presence as a sort of walking reference point lends the film more depth than it would probably have otherwise. James Caan and Katharine Ross feel more problematic to me and I say this with some hesitation, partly because I’m afraid James Caan would kick my ass. Caan had already made his two films for Howard Hawks by this point but here seems uneasy in front of the camera much of the time. His loosest moments come near the very end, making me wonder if it was shot in sequence and he was relaxing because he knew the end was near. Ross, likewise, doesn’t seem to have an ounce of eccentricity in her. I’ve known stylish couples like this before, who seem joined at the hip and maybe involved in their own bizarre little worlds, but these two just don’t resemble that type at all. I’ll have stuff thrown at me for saying this, but a remake of GAMES set in the hills of Silverlake would actually have some potential.

The flaws that exist in GAMES are ultimately minor and the movie, which I’ve only seen before on video, is already gaining in stature in my memory. Curtis Harrington may be a figure known to only a select audience but he did leave a mark and GAMES is a film which deserves to be seen by more people. Hopefully that DVD will come along one of these days.

So Obvious It Could Not Possibly Be A Trap

“These are not normal times, Cato. Someone has just tried to kill me.”
“That’s normal.”


Look, we’re just going to have to accept it. There is no decent explanation for why, in REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER, Chief Inspector Dreyfus is suddenly alive and well after presumably being disintegrated by the Doomsday Machine at the end of the last film. In addition, there’s no way to account for the fact that the character essentially became a terrorist in that film and yet this time around is fully ready to once again assume his duties as Chief Inspector of the Sortie. Looking for any sort of logic in all this is futile. Saying this is a prequel to STRIKES AGAIN doesn’t work. The thought that STRIKES AGAIN was simply an insanity-fueled hallucination for Dreyfus after the opening scene is amusing, but weak. Don’t worry about it. Don’t try to figure it out. Just look at it as one of those eternal mysteries that will never be solved, like Amelia Earhart, the Kennedy assassination and Chuck Cunningham.

In some ways THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN was the ultimate statement by Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers on the character of Inspector Clouseau. But the film was so huge it’s no surprise that another sequel was made. It’s just not very clear that they had anything really left to say about the character. That the film is as funny as it is remains a testament to their talents, but there is a slight feeling of diminishing returns happening here.


The all-over-the-place feel the last film had seems to have affected the approach to REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER. Instead, the plot and tone are pretty straight-on, with very little in the way of side vignettes. Whether a lot of extra footage was shot, I really don’t know, but it doesn’t feel that way. The visit to Auguste Balls, an excised scene from STRIKES AGAIN that plays like an isolated sketch, is here integrated into the plot by having a bomb meant for Clouseau show up at the door. Scenes pretty readily flow from one to the other throughout. It’s more of an apparent attempt at a self-contained narrative, but it’s hardly perfect storytelling.

Wealthy businessman-mobster Douvier (Robert Webber) is encountering resistance from New York in regards to an upcoming drug transaction. In response to this he decides to have Inspector Clouseau assassinated, proving that he is “still strong”. After several botched attempts, it’s believed that Douvier has succeeded and the world thinks that Clouseau is dead. Of course, it’s all a mistake and Clouseau, very much alive, cannot convince anyone that he is who he says he is. In the wake of all this, Douvier is forced by his wife to dump his secretary/mistress Simone (Dyan Cannon) and immediately becomes worried that she will reveal everything she knows. Eventually, Clouseau reconnects with Cato and decides to let the world continue to think he is dead so he can uncover the culprits. Dreyfus, meanwhile, is magically cured at hearing of Clouseau’s demise and is ready to return to his old job, unaware that Clouseau just may be behind the next door he opens.


A good idea for a plot, but certainly on a smaller scale than the world events depicted in the previous film. Much of what happens also isn’t all that credible, even on a farcical level. One would think that when Clouseau can’t convince the cops that he is who he says he is that things could just be cleared up with a few phone calls. Of course, I’ll admit to not knowing much about French law enforcement procedures of the 70’s. Cato also seems to transform Clouseau’s apartment in a magically brief amount of time. In addition, there’s a surprising number of coincidences that occur in the course of the film, events that stretch credibility to the breaking point, but things move so fast it’s easy to not really notice this.



The portrayal of Clouseau feels somewhat different this time and I wonder if this lack of consistency has to do with what was apparently the declining relationship between Edwards and Sellers. Clouseau spends more time in costume here than ever before, but there are various points in the film where, accent aside, he seems to be playing it weirdly straight and not at all like an imbecile. Interestingly, this is the second straight film where Clouseau finds himself befuddled by a man dressed up as a woman—last time it was the butler Jarvis leading his second life as a nightclub singer, this time around it’s the transvestite thief Claude Russo (THE IPCRESS FILE's Sue Lloyd) who forces Clouseau to switch clothes and steals his car, setting off the entire plot in the first place. Edwards would of course further explore the issues of male-female confusion in other films he would make.

I like Dyan Cannon here, but it’s a rather odd female lead in terms of likeability. She’s knowingly having an affair with a crime boss, being very much aware of his plot to assassinate Clouseau and when he tries to break it off she suggests he off his wife and her attorney. The movie never passes judgment on her for this and she teams up with Clouseau without any real thought about which side of the law she’s on. Blake Edwards did display points of view about some of his characters in various films, but the plot here moves so fast that there’s never any time for that.


Cannon does, however get to play a one-on-one with Sellers in what might be my favorite sequence in the film, but an unusually quiet one. Thinking Clouseau has saved her life, she leads him home through the rain away from the killers. After turning on some Mancini (making her a girl after my own heart, even if she does condone murdering policemen) and giving him a drink they play a very interesting scene where each learns who the other is. It’s a different sort of straight person than Clouseau has had for several film—that of a perfectly reasonable person who doesn’t get comically flustered and it takes her several minutes before discovering there is something unusual about the person she’s talking to. Watching this scene several times I also realize that Cannon spends much of it holding brandy glasses in both hands, much as Dudley Moore would do in a sequence a year later in “10”. There’s no greater point to make from this except that I would imagine it to be an Edwards touch, having noticed that the unusual site of a person holding two brandy glasses for several minutes is automatically funny.





The film moves to Hong Kong for the third act and what Graham Stark wrote in his book “Remembering Peter Sellers” may shed some light about plotting choices for the film. Shortly after the production arrived, a torrential thunderstorm began and was not expected to let up. Faced with the prospect of not being able to film, Edwards mused, “Anyone know if it’s raining in Rio?” Several hours went by with frantic phone calls to investigate this, but it eventually cleared up and filming continued. What I’m saying here is that while REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER has some very funny things in it, it’s clearly not a case of a plot that couldn’t be tampered with. Not everything works—Clouseau disguised as a Swedish sea matey doesn’t do much for me and Clouseau’s suggestions to “think yellow” as he is in disguised while in Hong Kong don’t play so well these days. But there are moments, such as the perfect split-second timing when Clouseau falls a second time through the hole in the floor that Cato has cut out for him, where we’re easily reminded that this film was made by comedy masters who very much knew what they were doing.


Cannon, Lom and Webber all do good work. The secondary role is a bit of a comedown for Lom after the last film but he certainly makes the most of being forced to deliever Clouseau’s eulogy. Stark, who was apparently present for the Hong Kong shoot for reasons he never determined, appears as Dr. Auguste Balls, master disguise maker. André Maranne plays Francois once again and Burt Kwouk as Kato has his biggest role in the series, getting to assist Clouseau as he goes undercover and off to Hong Kong. He’s very funny as he plays several scenes with glasses that he can’t see a thing through. Robert Loggia has his first role in the series, Adrienne Corri (Mrs. Alexander in the most famous scene from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) appears briefly as Douvier’s wife and Valerie Leon (BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB, but also opposite two James Bonds in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN) is Tanya the Lotus Eater. Herb Tanney appears again, this time as the Hong Kong Police Chief. He was supposed to be billed as, so help me, “Soo Fong Tanney”, but an error left him off the end crawl.

Some of Henry Mancini’s source tracks from this film are favorites of mine. I won’t go as far as to say that it’s one of his best scores, but these various pieces definitely make some of the album an ideal listening experience, particularly “Simone” and “After the Shower.” The main title theme is discoed up this time around and has an infectious feel to it that makes it maybe my favorite variant on the classic original.

REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER concludes on a quiet street in a scene with Clouseau and Cannon’s Simone that interestingly recalls the end of THE PARTY. In both cases they end with scenes that seem to resist having a “final gag” and for the first time ever in a Clouseau film with Cato, the manservant doesn’t interrupt his boss for one final attack. Whatever the personal relationship between Sellers and Edwards at this point, maybe the two men felt that this scene marked a conclusion for the Clouseau character and that he deserved a chance to walk away in a moment of normalcy. That turned out not to be the case, but it’s a nice thought.

I Even Lost My Cat

I was going to write something about the ending of THE LONG GOODBYE, both book and film, but I hesitated because maybe there’s somebody who hasn’t read or seen it. No reason for me to ruin it for those people. But it is an important ending and Robert Altman’s brilliant 1973 film of Raymond Chandler’s book is one of those touchstones that I feel I have to pull out again every few months. In some ways, it’s about an L.A. that is no longer there yet the L.A. in it is still very much present. And in reading back over that sentence, I’m not sure if I’m referring to how it played when first released or how it plays now. Which, considering the movie, makes perfect sense.

I was having dinner with someone the other night and we got to talking about someone we mutually know. It came up that we were both let down by how this person had behaved at times. My dinner companion told me some things that made what I was going to say seem petty by comparison, so I stayed quiet. I was surprised by those things, by the revelations about somebody I had once thought was a pretty solid individual. Friendship is a delicate thing, especially in this town. There are a few people right now who deep down I can trust implicitly but there are others who I know I’ve been close to in the past but they…I don’t know what to say about them. Sometimes it’s just tough to really know what happens to certain friendships.


The history of the friendship between Phillip Marlowe and Terry Lenox in the book of THE LONG GOODBYE is thoroughly explained, but what about the movie? What drew these two guys together and what sort of friendship was it? They’re close enough to have some pretty obvious inside jokes between them (“Who were the three DiMaggio Brothers?”) but there’s also the slight feeling that Terry is the one with the upper hand, as revealed when they compare serial numbers on their dollar bills—Marlowe could have easily won the bet, but Lennox bluffs and comes out ahead. In spite of this slight tension that exists, Gould’s Marlowe is willing to go to the mat for his friend when accusations rear their ugly head. Marlowe’s the one who suffers for this, but he does it because it’s what’s right and as he says, “it’s ok with me”. Until, of course, it isn’t. The potency of the choice he makes at the end—a very different one from the book, which I love, but it’s not one of the best endings ever—is one of the things that proved most controversial in 1973, but it remains a key reason that the film still feels alive today. What really makes a friendship can’t be fucked with. And both sides should always remember that. Terry Lennox couldn’t remember it. He never knew it.

Lying in bed last night, I felt like Phillip Marlowe in the opening moments of the movie, lying in bed, adrift somewhere in Hollywood. I wasn’t woken up by a cat and I didn’t get an unexpected visitor asking for a drive to Tijuana. But that feeling of wondering just what I was doing here in L.A. burned through me and all I could do was fall asleep, hoping that when I woke up the sun would be shining and there would be another chance for things to become right. Hooray for Hollywood.

The Words of a Beautiful Italian

The past week has seen the near-simultaneous deaths of two legendary directors. I’ve spent some time thinking about what this means to me, only to come to the embarrassing conclusion that I feel absolutely unqualified to really discuss them at this point in time. Not because I haven’t seen their work but because I haven’t seen enough of their work and have been resistant to diving down that rabbit hole to fully immerse myself in their worlds. The last 15 minutes or so of the movie represented here in what I find to be a haunting image mean as much to me as anything the two men ever created…there’s some sort of power to it that stays with me, I’m just not certain I could say why. There are many films I have yet to see and in the meantime I’m still learning.


Friday night at the Egyptian for the Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction fest was a double bill of Italian movies presented in conjunction with the Trieste International Science Fiction Film Festival. First on the bill was Lamberto Bava’s newest film, GHOST SON. Laura Harring, looking every inch like a fifties movie star, is a woman living a life of bliss in South Africa with husband John Hannah. After he is killed in an auto accident, she becomes totally distraught, even considering suicide. She then begins to have visions of her husband coming to her, which begin to turn extremely sexual in nature and those visions begin to take on a certain dark feel. Shortly afterward, she discovers through family friend Pete Postlethwaite that she is in fact pregnant. She has the baby, but soon enough she begins to have certain fears about just who the child is that she has given birth to.


Attractively shot in Scope, the majority of GHOST SON takes place in the isolated house of the main character, lending the film a continuing feel of Harring becoming more and more closed off from the world. The film is far from perfect—implications that the car accident might be supernatural in nature never seem to pay off and the ultimate solution seems a little overly familiar and simple, but I did find sections of it effective. Part of that was helped by a basic feel that this movie would not have been made by a studio in this way here in the states. Along with liberal doses of nudity and uses of African superstitions, it also contains the single most disturbing breast-feeding scene I’ve probably ever witnessed. Harring is excellent--much of the film is pretty much a one-woman show for her and it’s a shame to think how she never would have played this part if the film were made in America, where they certainly would cast someone at least ten years younger. Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, who starred in Bava’s DEMONS 2 and also appeared in Argento’s OPERA and his upcoming MOTHER OF TEARS, also appears.


Most interesting about the film is how the story of the dead reaching out to the world of the living echoes several films directed by Lamberto’s father Mario, most particularly 1977’s SHOCK, his final film and one which Lamberto reportedly had a hand in. SHOCK, for those who haven’t seen it, stars Daria Nicolodi as a woman who begins to suspect her late husband, who was a drug addict, is beginning to take possession of the son that she had while he was still alive. It isn’t close enough to be considered an actual remake but its theme of the dead reaching out to the world of the living makes allows certain familiar themes to reemerge. Some of these ideas also go all the way back to the elder Bava’s THE WHIP AND THE BODY and GHOST SON even contains an unmistakable update of what remains SHOCK’s most memorable scare.


It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the second film on the double bill was SHOCK, shown in a faded vintage print that contained the American release title of BEYOND THE DOOR II. Since Quentin Tarantino is one of those thanked in conjunction with the series, it’s possible this print is his. Whatever the title, the film retains its delirious dreamlike feel and the biggest scares remain potent. Nicolodi is also quite mesmerizing and it was very interesting to contrast her performance with Harring’s. In addition, I found myself noticing more bottles of J&B in the film than I ever had before.


Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, much more beautiful in person than she is allowed to be in her minor role in GHOST SON, appeared before the first film for a brief discussion. The extremely fetching actress discussed what was being screened, but more importantly the subject of MOTHER OF TEARS was brought up. She offered her opinion that this eagerly awaited final chapter in Dario Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy was not just an important film for Italian horror cinema, but for Italian cinema in general. Later that night, when the final scene of SHOCK played, I recalled the words of this beautiful Italian as I thought of how it echoed the legendary ending of TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. I thought about THE WHIP AND THE BODY and the final image of the Vurdalak section of Bava’s BLACK SABBATH. And after recalling the similarities SHOCK shared with GHOST SON, which led me to thinking of Tassoni’s presence, I thought of Argento and his work at various points with both Bavas. I thought of Argento’s own interest in the work of Antonioni, particularly in hiring David Hemmings for the lead in DEEP RED. And Antonioni, this great artist, has left us and there are still films of his that I have yet to explore. My mind began to spiral as it went in all these directions as I tried to think of Italian Cinema, its past and, hopefully, its future. I’m still learning about that history and in the meantime I look forward to MOTHER OF TEARS with enormous anticipation, hoping that even in a small way it helps to keep Italian Cinema, in all its different forms, alive.

A Good Closet Ploy

"Do you know what kind of a bomb it was?"
"The exploding kind."

It’s hard to ignore that THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN opens with an establishing shot, featuring a sign reading “Psychiatrique Hospital”. The point is clear: this entire film takes place in an insane asylum.

THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER was such a big hit that Edwards and Sellers were probably given free reign and there’s a feel to this follow-up, which came only a year and a half later, that they’re taking advantage of what they know works. Screen time doesn’t have to be wasted on Christopher Plummer anymore. This film takes place in a world that has already fallen off the brink and Clouseau seems to rule.


The film opens on former Chief Inspector Dreyfus presumably cured and about to be released from the mental hospital he had been committed to at the end of the last film. This gives the impression of one film carrying over into the next smoothly, but this isn’t really the case. Clouseau, visiting the hospital to speak on Dreyfus’ behalf, drives his former boss insane again almost within minutes of his arrival. After the credit sequence, Dreyfus has already escaped from the hospital. No point in wasting any time.

Reports out there suggest that early cuts of the film ran over two hours, but it was then cut down to about 103 minutes before release. Much of this footage wound up getting used later in TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER and a few bits seem to have been redone in revised form for REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER, adding to the déjà vu. But for STRIKES AGAIN, any running time it ever had would have probably presented a film that is very funny but also kind of all over the place.


Once Dreyfus has escaped, he immediately makes another attempt on Clouseau’s life which is of course unsuccessful. So he decides to create his own criminal empire with one ultimate goal: killing Clouseau. To achieve this goal, he kidnaps a nuclear physicist, Professor Hugo Fassbender, and forces him to build a “doomsday weapon” with which he hopes to blackmail the powers of the world so they will hand him Clouseau. Before this fact is even revealed to the world, Clouseau is assigned to travel to England to investigate the physicist’s disappearance.

The sequence where Clouseau arrives at Fassbender’s house, searches the premises and interrogates the staff is well known as one of the most hysterical sequences of the entire series. The whole thing is almost unbearably funny, yet it’s interesting how you could ask someone who’s just seen the film what it has to do with the plot and they might very well not have any recollection. There’s a slight feel to the first section of the film that resembles a mystery story where the lead begins investigating a small case, only to find it balloon into a large one. The Bond film DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER begins with a similar plot structure, even down to a montage of criminal activity occurring while exposition is given, and like that film this plot structure is pretty much abandoned by a certain point. The reasons given that lead Clouseau to Munich or the castle for the climax are extremely slim and are easily forgotten moments after they have been discussed.


Not that there’s any reason to complain, considering how funny the movie is. But it’s an extremely schizophrenic movie, going in a succession of scenes from a slapstick scene with Clouseau to the villainous Dreyfus in his castle to a series of odd White House scenes with a very unconvincing Gerald Ford lookalike. All of a sudden Dreyfus has become a sort of Bondian supervillain plotting mass destruction and it’s hard to resist asking, where did this come from? It’s also hard to avoid noting how, when Dreyfus plots the disintegration of the UN building, he expresses frustration that there will be no crater where the building once stood. “I want wreakage! Twisted metal! Something the world will not forget!”


Unlike the film that came before, Clouseau is totally at the center—in some ways he’s both the hero and the McGuffin—and is allowed to actually forward the plot this time around. The film is really too all over the place to be called the “best” of the entire series—A SHOT IN THE DARK qualifies for that honor—but it can easily be called the funniest. Herbert Lom takes his enlarged role and runs with it. He’s even seen playing the organ in his castle, providing a nice memory for anyone who saw him starring in the Hammer version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Burt Kwouk as Kato and André Marranne as Francois again appear. Herb Tanney appears in drag as “Norwiegan Assassin”, credited as Sado Tanney. The singing voice belonging to transvestite butler Jarvis is not actor Michael Robbins who plays the role, but is in fact that of Julie Andrews. Lesley-Anne Down is very beautiful as Russian spy Olga and particularly good is Leonard Rossiter (also in DEADLIER THAN THE MALE) as Quinlan, the British cop in charge of the Fassbender kidnapping. It’s a small role, but he stands out because the character truly seems to be making an attempt to not let what happened to Dreyfus happen to him.


Graham Stark gets the dual credit of Munich Hotel Clerk/Alpenros Hotel Clerk, which he explains in his book “Remembering Peter Sellers”. In devising his cameo apperarance for this film, Blake Edwards devised a scene where Clouseau would encounter Stark playing a German hotel clerk with a tiny moustache—in other words, a Hitler moustache (it’s easy to imagine Stark this way. Stark writes that he knew the scene would never be used because Sellers would never be able to keep it together long enough for a usable take and he was apparently proven right. So that sure looks like the back of Stark’s head very briefly handing a key over to a Clouseau imposter and it was left to Edwards to come up with another scene. The solution was for Stark to play a different desk clerk under old age makeup, smoking a pipe. According to Stark, they spent an entire day shooting his scenes, continually smoking the pipe, and he began to have a strange feeling as they worked. It wasn’t until much later until, he claims, someone told him that marijuana had been secretly placed in the pipe he spent all day smoking. Anyway, it was these circumstances that led to the world getting the classic “That is not my dog” bit.

The Henry Mancini score features the debut of “The Inspector Clouseau Theme”, kind of this series’ equivalent of John Barry’s 007 theme that turns up in a few of the Bond movies. Finally providing an actual theme for the character was a good idea and works flawlessly in not overpowering the comedy. There’s also a fair amount of serious music to underscore Dreyfus’s use of the Doomsday Machine and it works just right.


Certain elements already display some Edwards films to come—the gay nightclub where Clouseu tracks down Jarvis is a clear forefunner to VICTOR/VICTORIA. But the setpiece at the Oktoberfest in Munich where assassin after assassin accidentally kills each other instead of their target of Clouseau remains jet black today and is just as funny, with timing that is perfect to the millisecond. It’s a sequence like this which makes THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN the ultimate expression by Edwards and Sellers of this character of Clouseau that they had created. It remains a masterful comedy to this day.