Revenge of the Pink Panther

Revenge of the Pink Panther. 1978 United Artists, distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Dyan Cannon, Robert Webber, Burt Kwouk
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Blake Edwards
Available from Amazon as a single DVD, or part of the Pink Panther Film Collection.

This is the final appearance for Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau before his death; the next Pink Panther film, Trail of the Pink Panther, used a plethora of outtakes of Sellers from previous films. Still, that didn't stop Blake Edwards from cranking out 1983's Curse of the Pink Panther, attempting to relaunch the series with TV actor Ted Wass (Soap, Blossom) as the new main character, NYPD sergeant Clifton Sleigh, while bringing in Roger Moore to play Clouseau (after extensive plastic surgery).

Anyway...

Philippe Douvier (Webber) is a French businessman with ties to the mob, who is making a deal with a New York syndicate for a lucrative drug smuggling operation. Douvier is deemed "too old" to handle it, so he decides to prove his worth by bumping off Inspector Clouseau. The first attempt with a bomb fails, and a second attack by a Chinese martial artists is easily thwarted by the detective, who believed it was the doing of his assistant Cato (Kwouk), who is always under orders to randomly attack his master to keep him alert.

Douvier anonymously calls Clouseau, and poses as an informant to tell him about a criminal involved in the French Connection, and where he's currently operating. After an exciting car chaseCato warns the inspector that it's obviously a trap, but Clouseau concludes that it's obviously not a trap. After driving to the location, Clouseau is mugged by a transvestite criminal called Claude Russo, who steals the detective's clothes and car. Russo drives into the trap and is murdered by Douvier's men, leading people to conclude that Clouseau is dead. Meanwhile, former Commissioner Charles Dreyfus (Lom) is deemed sane, and scheduled for release so he can take over on the case. Instead, after Clouseau is taken to the same asylum, Dreyfus sees him, and faints. The inspector steals his clothes and escapes, returning home, and teaming with Cato to plan revenge, using the public belief that Clouseau was murdered to their advantage.

They are soon joined by Douvier's former secretary and secret lover Simone LeGree (Cannon), who leaves him after his wife threatens him with divorce. Dreyfus leaves the asylum and again fails to assassinate Clouseau after tracking everyone involved (including Douvier) into Hong Kong.

Recommended, but obviously not the greatest Pink Panther movie ever made