Peter Sellers returns to famous role as bumbling Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau for the fourth time (and the second time in the span of 19 months, following 1975's "The Return of the Pink Panther"). Here, the bumbling Clouseau attempts to stop former boss Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) from using a laser beam to decimate parts of the world. Co-writer/director/producer Blake Edwards flogs the audience with idiot comedy, much of it climaxing in the not-hilarious destruction of property--and I wonder how many times Sellers had to fall into the moat before he cried, "Enough already!" Dismaying to see the Clouseau character wind up as a human cartoon, flaying away on occasionally crass or vulgar set-ups. Sellers himself looks fatigued and disinterested, as he and Edwards fail to prod much of this slapstick nonsense into routines worthy of either of them. Followed another year and seven months by "Revenge of the Pink Panther" in 1978. *1/2 from ****
Review of The Pink Panther Strikes Again
