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Inspector Clouseau (1968)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
7/18
7/18:
That's weird.
Instead of Peters Sellers, it's Alan Arkin for Inspector Clouseau, the supposedly third film of
The Pink Panther franchise. Um, why? Was Peter Sellers so funny in
A Shot in the Dark that he had to be replaced?
It turns out he and Blake Edwards were busy making The Party although Sellers kept turning
down offers to reprise his famous role, so the Mirisch Company decided to start filming Inspector Clouseau without them.
As a result, it failed miserably at the box office. A lesson must be learned here: never fix, or rather replace, what's not broken.
Years later, Alan Arkin was interviewed by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz, who mentioned his work in Inspector Clouseau
for a few seconds, and he quickly dismissed it as a mistake by stating Peter Sellers knew how to be funny and he was no
Peter Sellers. I'll be fair and say Alan Arkin was funny at times, but most of the comedy he generated occurs only
during the first half. The second is disastrous which is full of convolutions. At the end, for some strange reason, the
bad guys get away quietly without resolve.
The idea, which obviously came from Mission: Impossible TV series, of disguising gang members as Inspector Clouseau
via masks is stupid, especially when they wear an inexplicably heavy black eyeliner. Regardless, Alan Arkin will
redeem himself during the same year by giving one of the greatest performances of his career in
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
All in all, there's only one Inspector Clouseau, and his name is Peter Sellers.