Pink Panther (Peter Sellers)
in Movies ·
So, I actually sat down and tried to watch the movie yesterday... ugh...👎 The truth is, the reason behind Charade is just Blake Edwards’ insatiable hunger for a paycheck. Without Sellers carrying the weight, you can really see how trivial he is as an independent auteur; his success as a director was always heavily dependent on a third party—either a brilliant actor or a killer script (like Truman Capote in Breakfast at Tiffany's).
For those of you who actually enjoy reading, here’s my little breakdown of the Pink Panther saga.
That first installment back in '63 wasn't much more than a high-budget fashion shoot. It was essentially a studio bankrolling a few months of filming in fancy American resort towns just to churn out some light entertainment that audiences would happily swallow. In that era, I think the standout was Stanley Donen’s Charade starring Cary Grant. Anyone who's seen it knows the blueprint is identical to Pink Panther: a glamorous vacation spot, wealthy socialites, a theft, and a bumbling inspector acting as a mere side note... which is exactly what Clouseau was supposed to be in Pink Panther, too. But because Sellers tends to hijack the screen the second he appears, the main cast led by Niven ended up pushed into the background. Honestly, nobody even bothered asking what happened to them in the later sequels...
Eventually, Clouseau became a standalone character, and through the sequels, Sellers turned him into a total caricature for one simple reason: he hated everything associated with the series, including Clouseau himself, yet that same Clouseau was the thing putting food on his table because the franchise was a gold mine. Sellers seemed to find a twisted amusement in seeing just how far this kind of onscreen deviation and gothic direction could go before the audience revolted. You can clearly see how much Clouseau in, say, the fourth entry (Pink Panther Strikes Again) drifts away from the original concept—or even the second one, A Shot in the Dark, which is a genuine, unpolished gem based on a novel where they just swapped names to fit the series. By then, the dialogue becomes unrecognizable, his disguises and costumes turn absurd, and the settings feel almost surreal...
In the final year before he passed away, Sellers was working on a screenplay for yet another Pink Panther. He managed to finish a second draft, and the plan was to film it without Edwards, since their working relationship had become such a nightmare. The Mirschev producers knew exactly who the real money-maker was, so they gave him free rein, even allowing him to direct without Edwards for the first time. I actually managed to track down that script and read it—you can tell it isn't an Edwards piece; Sellers' influence is all over it. Apparently, the first draft was so far outside the established tone that the producers demanded they "Panther-up" the whole thing. This sequel was meant to introduce some romance for Clouseau, but... well... it’s strange to me that the Mirschevs didn't just use that script after Sellers died. It was their property, after all, yet they just kept moving forward with entirely new Panther productions... weird.
But honestly, it's probably for the best that nothing came of it. If it had been produced, Sellers probably would have ended up using a stand-in for most of the film anyway. He was so ill toward the end that he could barely walk; most of the time he had to be driven around or carried. Poor guy. 😢
For those of you who actually enjoy reading, here’s my little breakdown of the Pink Panther saga.
That first installment back in '63 wasn't much more than a high-budget fashion shoot. It was essentially a studio bankrolling a few months of filming in fancy American resort towns just to churn out some light entertainment that audiences would happily swallow. In that era, I think the standout was Stanley Donen’s Charade starring Cary Grant. Anyone who's seen it knows the blueprint is identical to Pink Panther: a glamorous vacation spot, wealthy socialites, a theft, and a bumbling inspector acting as a mere side note... which is exactly what Clouseau was supposed to be in Pink Panther, too. But because Sellers tends to hijack the screen the second he appears, the main cast led by Niven ended up pushed into the background. Honestly, nobody even bothered asking what happened to them in the later sequels...
Eventually, Clouseau became a standalone character, and through the sequels, Sellers turned him into a total caricature for one simple reason: he hated everything associated with the series, including Clouseau himself, yet that same Clouseau was the thing putting food on his table because the franchise was a gold mine. Sellers seemed to find a twisted amusement in seeing just how far this kind of onscreen deviation and gothic direction could go before the audience revolted. You can clearly see how much Clouseau in, say, the fourth entry (Pink Panther Strikes Again) drifts away from the original concept—or even the second one, A Shot in the Dark, which is a genuine, unpolished gem based on a novel where they just swapped names to fit the series. By then, the dialogue becomes unrecognizable, his disguises and costumes turn absurd, and the settings feel almost surreal...
In the final year before he passed away, Sellers was working on a screenplay for yet another Pink Panther. He managed to finish a second draft, and the plan was to film it without Edwards, since their working relationship had become such a nightmare. The Mirschev producers knew exactly who the real money-maker was, so they gave him free rein, even allowing him to direct without Edwards for the first time. I actually managed to track down that script and read it—you can tell it isn't an Edwards piece; Sellers' influence is all over it. Apparently, the first draft was so far outside the established tone that the producers demanded they "Panther-up" the whole thing. This sequel was meant to introduce some romance for Clouseau, but... well... it’s strange to me that the Mirschevs didn't just use that script after Sellers died. It was their property, after all, yet they just kept moving forward with entirely new Panther productions... weird.
But honestly, it's probably for the best that nothing came of it. If it had been produced, Sellers probably would have ended up using a stand-in for most of the film anyway. He was so ill toward the end that he could barely walk; most of the time he had to be driven around or carried. Poor guy. 😢