Bright Clouseau

By John Show

THE REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER Directed by Blake Edwards Screenplay by Frank Waldman, Ron Clark and Blake Edwards

Child guidance is suggested here: some scenes may not be suitable for adults. But for those who suspect maturity is not worth the barbiturates, the new Pink Panther is first-class folderol.

In this entry, Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau has never been balmier, and Dyan Cannon gives new blouse to the word blowsy as a sharpshooting businessman's castoff mistress. The movie has more plot than Birth of a Nation, and there is no sign anywhere (save during the credits) of a panther; but those who have battered their thought processes through four previous PPs could care less: they just want more, if possible without paraquat.

It is hard to say what makes Clouseau so funny. He is supposed to be French, of course. Why, therefore, does he speak English with the strong Gallic accent of a man raised in Stuttgart? His colleagues and adversaries are French too, but they cannot figure out why Clouseau talks that way or, mostly, what he is talking about. "Leu and order," he says, meaning what he has sworn to uphold; every sentence contains a verbal banana peel.

Clouseau has the shrewdness of idiocy. He is driving his car. A gorgeous floozy jumps in at a stop light. She leers invitingly. He is dumbfounded. She leers some more. He begins to suspect that she has something not quite upright in mind. She smolders. He is within seconds of deciding that a lewd proposition is in the air. She opens her mouth and says, huskily, "It's green." Now he is flummoxed, filled with honest consternation-- and intrigued. Can she mean . . . ? "The light," she explains sweetly.

After a little seraphic nonsense like this, anything seems funny. The film's next best bit occurs when Clouseau is thought to be dead. One of his co-detectives (Herbert Lom), driven crazy by Clouseau, is asked to deliver the eulogy. He hates Clouseau so much that as he speaks his shoulders shake and his face contorts. The mourners interpret these convulsions as grief, but we know the man is giggling. Really dedicated Panther degenerates refuse to leave the theater when the lights go up.

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