Inspector Clouseau

...of the comedic talents of Alan Arkin.

Arkin is a fine actor, with a flair for incorporating pathos into comedy. Arkin's Clouseau was different from the one that Sellers had portrayed (though the Clouseau in The Pink Panther & A Shot In The Dark was far removed from the Clouseau in the 70's movies) - Arkin's Clouseau KNEW that he was hopelessly clumsy and introduced a side to the character that Sellers steered clear of when the three picture deal was stuck during the 1970's.

Inspector Clouseau is also one of the shortest entries in the series; this would most likely be down to the fact that it seems choppy, with all the hallmarks of a movie being butchered down to around 90 minutes when a studio loses faith during post-production and test screenings.

Even if a restored version was released (though it's a pretty safe bet that the original elements ceased to exist decades ago), it would be a far from perfect movie, but it would at least give fans of the series a chance to properly evaluate the movie as a whole, rather than as just a series of disjointed set-pieces where characters appear and disappear and situations occur with little-or-no-reason.

Alan Arkin may have been mauled for his interesting interpretation of the character, but there was more inventiveness and creativity into his single stint as Clousea than Sellers put into the three seventies Pink Panther movies.

Many reviewers claim this production stinks because Sellers isn't in it. Okay, those are the Sellers fans. But fans of the Pink Panther series (rather than die-hard Sellers fans) may not have minded so much that it wasn't Sellers in the driver's seat so much, had the movie not been a completely disgusting spectacle. This work holds NOTHING of the wit, the humor, or the heart of the others.

I'm sorry to say that this attempt was a failure, and this chapter may comfortably be left out of your Pink Panther collection, as the finished product holds nothing in the way of charm or character.

Sadly, it rates a 2.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Alan Arkin playing Clouseau would have to rank as one of the most awful casting choices ever made. (Will Smith as Mohammed Ali? Close. Di Crapio as a tough guy in 19th-century New York? Very close.) Arkin has never played clowns, nor is he one. He is far too cynical-looking for this type of role. Watching him say his lines was an exercise in embarrassment and major cringing. I suppose that die-hard PP fans who have nothing better to do can have endless discussions as to who was worse: Martin or Arkin. Maybe it'll take another 40 years for someone to attempt to make a PP movie without Sellers. What with the direction Hollywood is heading towards in recent years, it'll be someone like David Arquette's son who'll be cast to play the goofy Frenchman...

One person here wrote that one should forget about Peter Sellers and watch this movie on its own merits. Maybe he/she can do that, probably with some help from hallucinogenic drugs, but personally I'd find that a task both impossible and stupid. The fact is that Sellers DID do Panther earlier and was about 1000 times better.

Arkin is terminally unfunny with the sight gags, but it's the dialogue that really exposes his miscasting: there isn't a single line he says that is even remotely funny.

In all fairness, though, the script is garbage. The story has no flow, just a bunch of barely connected scenes strung together, the gags being rare and rather pathetic. The only thing the movie has going for it are the high production values, which make it watchable, if nothing else.

Bad movies with bad actors acting badly are just blah. Bad movies where you can see great actors struggling (with bad material or parts that don't fit them) bring their own special kind of pain. Watching Alan Arkin and Frank Finlay trying to make one of their unfunny scenes work, I realised that these two guys had five Oscar nominations between them. You may read in some places that this film is an overlooked gem. It isn't. Avoid it.

I guess it would be redundant at this point to say Alan Arkin's Clouseau can't touch Peter Sellers, which is certainly true. Nevertheless, I admit I liked this movie (though a lot less than the Pink Panthers, of course), the plot is actually credible and there are some truly funny moments. I give Arkin credit for attempting a role heavily identified with another- and better- actor, and he's OK in it. It's not a total disaster, as some people have claimed and worth watching, if only for the comparisons. ** 1/2 out of 4