The Return of the Pink Panther

The Return of the Pink Panther. 1975 United Artists and ITC Entertainment Group, now distributed by Focus Features and Universal Pictures.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell, Herbert Lom, Burt Kwok
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Available at Amazon.

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau returns for the first time since 1964's A Shot in the Dark. By now, his bumbling has gotten him demoted to beat cop by Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Lom), who hates Clouseau to the point of obsession. The French government overturns his decision, and Clouseau is sent to the fictional nation of Lugash to investigate another theft of the Pink Panther diamond.

After nearly wrecking the Lugash National Museum while investigating, Clouseau concludes that the thief is Sir Charles Lytton (Plummer), who recreated the most infamous heist of his criminal career. The inspector is delighted at his deduction, seeing it as his only chance to get revenge on Lytton for framing him and getting him sent to prison in the first movie. This time, Lytton is in the clear, as he is being framed for the theft, and the crime was the work of his wife, Lady Claudine (Schell), which he discovers after traveling to Lugash to investigate the theft himself. This means that Clouseau, who had been trailing Claudine, was unwittingly on the trail of the real thief.

Meanwhile, Dreyfus enters the case, as the assassin trying, and failing, to kill Clouseau. The Lyttons are confronted by Colonel Sharky (Peter Arne) of Lugash's secret police, who intends to kill them both, and Lugash's government is using the theft of the Pink Panther to purge their political opponents. Clouseau arrives to arrest the Lyttons, then Sharky after Sir Charles points out that he plans to kill them. Dreyfus opens fire on the room's occupants, but only kills Sharky, and the Lyttons escape. Clouseau is promoted to Chief Inspector, and he vows to bring Sir Charles, who has resumed his life of crime, to justice. Dreyfus is committed to a lunatic asylum, vowing to murder Clouseau as the animated Pink Panther appears to taunt him.

Recommended movie.