People are voting emotionally.

Instant Favorite.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Sixth Pink Panther film carries on despite the death of star Peter Sellers, as Clouseau goes missing after his plane goes into the sea, since he was assigned to investigate the third theft of the Pink Panther diamond. A news reporter decides to do an extended profile on Clouseau's life, interviewing many old costars from the films(like Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk, David Niven(back as Sir Charles Litton) and his wife(but Clouseau's ex-wife) played again by Capucine(though not the same wife from "Return" that was played by Catherine Schell! Can Sir Charles be a bigamist?) Disjointed and largely pointless film is made watchable by the use of outtakes of Sellers from previous films to tell the story, and sell the idea of him "appearing". Doesn't really work, but not as bad as some believe, though it is the last one worth watching(Did not bother with "Curse" or "Son")

Rather than despairing about the loss of a comedic genius or the choices made by studios or Director Blake Edwards after his death, my review will focus on Trail of the Pink Panther's successful eulogy for the series and the great Peter Sellers. The film is clearly a tribute from its dedication - "To Peter, the one and only Inspector Clouseau" to its ambiguous and seemingly symbolic ending.The Pink Panther has been stolen, and Clouseau (Sellers) is on his way to Lugash. Over the ocean, his plane disappears. Is Clouseau really gone or is this just another of his ingenious tricks and is he undercover in Lugash hunting the perpetrator. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Lom)is at first overjoyed - he may finally be rid of Clouseau - but soon enough he begins to suspect that he will see his former colleague again, and his debilitating obsessions return. Meanwhile, a French reporter (Lumley) begins a series of investigative reports trying to get to the bottom of the Clouseau disappearance. She interviews Cato (Burt Kwouk) and many of Clouseau's enemies, colleagues and acquaintances.Sellers appears in the film only in archive footage and scenes cut from previous films. The same is true for most of the other Panther veterans in the film, but several new Dreyfus scenes were added. The first half of the film, prior to Clouseau's disappearance, hang together well-enough - but it is very clear that we are seeing a film which has been loosely cobbled together from a collage of material. The second half, while more coherent and linearly plotted, lacks Peter Sellers - and - really - just isn't very funny.Lom, Kwouk and Lumley turn in the best performances here, and after Clouseau's disappearance, Lom and Kwouk are really the only performers who occasionally create a laugh.The absence of Peter Sellers is palpable in the second half of the film, and although the film clearly attempts to remain light-hearted and Pantheresque, this absence lends a sadness to Trail of the Pink Panther which makes it a much more successful eulogy than comedy. However, all considered, it is probably the least entertaining film in the Pink Panther canon.

I believe Blake Edwards intentions with this movie were noble. I'm sure it was meant as a tribute to Peter Sellers, who passed away in 1980, for playing Chief Insp. Jacques Clouseau so greatly in the previous more successful Pink Panther movies. It does this by using archive footage of Sellers in his role as Clouseau and by incorporating 'interviews' with people Clouseau encountered in the previous movies. This also means the return of David Niven, Robert Loggia, Harvey Korman, Graham Stark, Capucine, Burt Kwouk, André Maranne and of course Herbert Lom. Some of them only had appeared in the earliest of the Pink Panther movies and I felt that they appeared in this movie because they felt they owed it to Peter Sellers. I mean they really didn't needed to appear in this movie unless they really wanted to. After all David Niven was already seriously ill at the time and also died shortly after shooting.Therefor this movie can perhaps be better seen as a special you would normally see on a DVD, that is paying tribute to a past away actor. However there were obviously no DVD's yet in 1982 and a TV special would perhaps had been too expensive and simplistic as a tribute. I'm sure Blake Edwards wanted to make something special for his good old friend and at the same time also use this movie as a set up for the next sequel "Curse of the Pink Panther", which was also shot at the same time as this movie and is therefor also featuring most of the same actors.However big mistake that Blade Edwards made was that he tried to incorporate a story into this movie. This story however seen gets abandoned again early on into the movie, as if they ran out of good usable Peter Sellers archive footage.Watching this old cut archive footage also often makes it obvious why it got cut from the original movies. Often the sequences go on for too long and are stretched out far too much, as if Sellers and his fellow actors and director were merely trying out some stuff to see what would work and what wouldn't and how far they could go with things. The comedy in those sequences also often doesn't work out as intended, which explains why they never made the final cut. It's also confusing to see some sequences that were obviously meant original for mainly "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" and "Revenge of the Pink Panther" incorporated into this movie as part of the story but however these different sequences obviously don't really connect with each other also because most of those sequences are basically the same, though less good, ones that got eventually used in those earlier mentioned movies.But also the originally shot comical sequences for this movie don't really work out. Peter Sellers is simply missed too much in this movie. Blake Edwards tried but his attempts simply weren't good enough. He tried to make it work by putting also new characters into the movie, such as Clouseau's father.A failed experimental attempt by Blake Edwards.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

It could've been better movie and smarter greeting in the memory of (Peter Sellers). It wasn't that difficult to write a script which can make all the characters unites to find the real criminal especially with the existence of (Herbert Lom) as (Dreyfus), (Burt Kwouk) as (Cato), and (David Niven) himself, instead of this boring idiot TV report which deceived the audience by another (Peter Sellers)'s movie to discover eventually that it's just a miser scenes of him (deleted of previous movies of the series) then a program about him with some already used scenes from the series' previous movies !Maybe the shock of (Sellers)'s sudden death was stronger than everybody so they couldn't do anything. Maybe they were too loyal to seize the opportunity and occupy the movie of the great late icon after his absence. Or maybe (Blake Edwards) had something else in his mind.. in fact he wanted to push the franchise with another lead and I mean (Ted Wass) who'll appear at the next year in (Curse of the Pink Panther - 1983), so he made (Trail of the Pink Panther) as just the first volume however it was very odd and silly enough (the movie, the idea of another Clouseau, moreover THAT Clouseau !!). There isn't any bright thing in here : The pace is deadly, the performance is average which means bad in a Pink Panther's movie !, the personality of the father was pathetic; just a fabricated pretext to capture the lost presence of (Sellers), maybe the music of (Henry Macini) was the smartest element; you can sense its strong sad feeling while the elevator's simple scene which became like a small elegy honors and misses a star's uniqueness.So it could be a 20 minutes movie for the original Pink Panther as his last brief sketches, or a half movie; a forever deficient one which was too lame and proudly doesn't try to compensate its weakness with anything close to cohesive (Not to mention comic !), or it's nothing but a phantom of a dead star, lovely personality, or nice movie. In one word it's how to define demise or fizzle cinematically !