The Pink Panther

"Brother From Another Series" is both my favorite episode of The Simpsons featuring Sideshow Bob, and the last great Sideshow Bob episode. In it, we see how Bob got the job of Krusty's sidekick. It was his brother, Cecil, who wanted the position, but his pie-in-the-face gag at the audition bombs. Seeing Bob there dressed in a nice suit, Krusty orders the pie thrower to hit Bob with the pie, which elicits peels of laughter from Krusty and network execs. Krusty says this to Cecil when rejecting him in favor of Bob, who was never interested in the job anyway: "The pie gag only works if the sap's got dignity". I thought about this while being bored out of my mind watching The Pink Panther. I needed something to occupy my time, because the movie wasn't giving me much of anything. The first 15-20 minutes sets up what is supposed to be the plot going forward: Inspector Jacques Clouseau, trying to chase down the elusive Phantom, a thief that has made no bones about his new target, the largest diamond in the world, a pink gem called The Pink Panther. Yeah, I fully expected that nickname to belong to the thief, not to a rock. The Princess who holds it is in exile after her government is toppled, staying at an Italian ski resort. So is international playboy Sir Charles Lytton, who is The Phantom. Clouseau goes to the ski resort under the assumption that if he stays in orbit around the Princess, he can catch The Phantom. Clouseau's defining characteristic is being clumsy. Not just the occasional trip over the rug, but a ludicrous lack of spatial awareness or peripheral vision, the grace of a drunken giraffe, a fleeting sense of object permanence, and an inability to use common objects. Given his many, many, many issues with basic human movement, it's a miracle he isn't in traction 24/7. Before you rush to the comment to tell me that the pratfalls and the clumsiness are supposed to be the humor, yeah, here's where I bring back the opening paragraph and kill that argument dead. If Clouseau was endearing in ANY WAY, if he had any shred of dignity whatsoever, there might be the slightest bit of humor in the OCCASIONAL pratfall. But he doesn't. He's a moron. As evidenced much later in the film, Lytton is the only person to be at all 16 parties where the Panther has struck. OH GEE I WONDER WHO THE PANTHER IS. Does Clouseau ever use this to his advantage? No. He goes to the villa in hopes that simply being within orbit of the Princess will luck him into finding The Phantom. He doesn't notice that his wife is having an affair, even when she is openly flirting with, and even making out with, not one but TWO MEN on a dance floor at a party he is at. I can't sympathize with such a profound idiot, so seeing him step on his violin or accidentally tear the doorhandle off when trying to exit a room or get his hand stuck in a beer stein isn't funny, because the character is a buffoon. That's not even discussing how there is fresh physical humiliation for him in every single scene. By the midway point of this movie, there is very little horse corpse left to beat, but the movie keeps kicking at the remains. And any non-Clouseau-is-a-bumbling-doof "humor" is so corny, it's an honorary citizen of Nebraska. There's a scene where Lytton and his lackey stage a fistfight. This is not a joke. This cannot be a joke. It's part of the antagonist's plot to steal jewelry. What does director Blake Edwards do to try and make this funny, for no discernable reason? SLIDE WHISTLE NOISES OVER THE FAKE PUNCHES. This is sub-Scooby Doo-level humor. The only part that even vaguely amused me was a play on the going in and out of doors gag, done on the city streets with cars instead, with the humor coming from an old man trying to cross the road and getting not only cut off by the same four cars going back and forth in different directions, but each one being driven by people in absurd costumes like a gorilla or a court jester. The problem with characterization extends to, well, everybody, which makes the cast of characters insufferable. Lytton is presented as this suave, debonair playboy, a master seducer that has 10 girlfriends at the same time and all of them know it but none of them care, but he's as smooth as 30 grit sandpaper. He's smug, unlikeable, and not exactly handsome or distinguished. He looks like a creepy old uncle, and acts like one too. His "romance" of The Princess is nauseating just on the basis of their massive age difference, but also because The Princess is unlikeable. She is cold and aloof, but also, she's kind of a criminal herself, as her former homeland's courts have ruled the Pink Panther is the property of the people and she refuses to give it back. "Deposed oligarch that feels entitled to take what she wants in defiance of the law" isn't an endearing character trait. And Clouseau's wife, Simone, tags along because the plot needs her to, because she's having an affair with and conspiring with Lytton ... and then starts a flirtation with Lytton's nephew too, who is in town because he too wants to steal the Pink Panther. If this movie were trying to be a dark comedy like The War Of The Roses or Very Bad Things, it could get away with having the entire principal cast be unlikeable. But it's trying to be a light-hearted, screwball caper. I don't need a whole cast of pure north babyfaces to laugh -- half the cast of Ghostbusters, and especially Venkman, are flawed -- but when I don't enjoy ANYBODY, the "comedy" (and I use that term so loosely, it's breaking the bonds of gravity) doesn't have a chance to land. On top of all this, the direction is just the dregs. Scenes end with fadeaways and cuts that feel hurried, even though this movie's two hour run time (a cardinal sin for all but the most elite of comedies) and nothing about the movie's plot runs at a brisk pace. There is a whole song and dance number midway through the movie where the movie just stops dead in its tracks. There is no plot reason for this to happen, and even weirder, the singer looks at and sings to the camera, even though within the context of the movie, she's in a crowded room at the ski chalet. Bits like the "three men in a hotel room" scene and the part where both Lytton and his nephew are robbing the same safe from two different sides of the wall are stretched well past the breaking point. The opening 5-7 minutes of this movie is, literally, five short scenes that establish a location with on-screen text, show you something happening without identifying a single person in the scene or what the context of the action is, and then "MEANWHILE, IN [LOCATION" pops up and we're whisked away to somewhere else. This happens about half a dozen times in that 5 or so minutes, leaving me annoyed and frustrated at what any of these scenes were supposed to be or how they connected. If this was some big Ocean's Eleven-style caper where the point is to keep the viewer in the dark until the big reveal, it would make sense, but it isn't. And this style is never used again, giving the opening this false sense of momentum that's really just a nonsensical, blind, shotgun blast of information without context. If you couldn't tell, I didn't have a good time with this. I didn't click with it in any way. I like the location shooting, and the Pink Panther theme is enjoyable, and despite my previous complaints, the scene where Claudia Cardinale as the Princess is drunk for the first time in her life is cute. But this was a slog. I didn't watch this, I endured it. I'm told the Pink Panther movies get a lot better, but since they focus more on Clouseau and his bumbling, I am inclined to not bother. I don't know how much torture it would be if he were the main focus; I could barely stand him as one facet of an ensemble of suck. I'm sure in 1963, this movie was gangbusters, but sensibilities and tastes for humor have changed. The bar has been raised, and this is not clearing it. It's not meeting it. Hell, this can't even see the bar.